Wordplay
I wondered this morning, with all of the news, blogs, books, and magazines I read every day, just how many words pass through my eyes and into my brain? And what happens to them when they get there?
I hit at least ten news sites a day, everything from The Times to CNN to The Guardian.
I tend to print three of four longer articles to read while riding elevators throughout the day, and another four or five for the subway. I also read Rolling Stone, New York, Esquire, Wired, and whatever else is lying around at any given moment.
I read about twenty blogs a day, everything from news, media, and entertainment blogs (like Huffington Post, Lost Remote, and Idolator) to my friend’s (like Jonathan, Alex, and Stephanie).
At home, I’m currently reading four books: Davy Rothbart’s “The Lone Surfer Of Kansas, Montana,” Linda Ellerbee’s “Take Big Bites,” Bill Moyers’ “Moyers on America,” and Rajiv Chandrasekara’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” Thomas E. Ricks’ “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” is on deck.
Let’s just guestimate a total. Let’s say twenty online articles at 500 words per (10,000 words), twenty blog entries at 250 words per (5000), one magazine article at 1000 words, and — for the sake of argument — one chapter of any given book at another 10,000 words. That’s 26,000 words a day, 182,000 words a week, and nearly 9.5M words a year.
Oh, and let’s just disqualify email alltogether.
9.5M words a year.
To what end? Am I any smarter? More articulate? More informed or intelligent?
My memory for detail isn’t great. My brain works a little bit like a library in which the staff is a bit tipsy. When I ask it for a copy of Herman Melvilles whaling classic, it tends to return data on the bald guy who recorded “Porcelain.” Close, but not quite. So when it comes to witty cocktail party banter, well, I’m not sure I can offer much more than concept.
Which has nothing to do with why I read. Or, I guess, what I know.
By the way, the first words I read upon entering my office building today?
A Captivate Network’s poll that said 74% of respondents thought that Boston overreacted to the whole Aqua Teen Hunger Force thing last week.
Genius.
And completely superfluous.
Beer Pong
I grew up in Chicago. I remember rooting for Walter Payton, Will “The Refrigerator” Perry, Jim McMahon, and the rest of the 1986 Bears. And I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, for a year (my father still does). Still, once the beer pong competition turned heated, even Super Bowl XLI couldn’t command my attention.
Sure, I was interested in the pouring rain, the sudden first quarter touchdown, the numerous turnovers, the Buffalo wings, the ads, and all the rest, but until Chris and Meg busted out the plastic yelllow cups, well, it was just another Sunday night in front of the boob tube.
Chris and Meg, as it ends up, take their beer pong seriously. Their dining room table comes equipt with green felt (well, paper) and a rock solid surface. I needed just one match, just one tete-a-tete, to be drawn in completely.
You may not know this, but I’m really not much for games. Call a competition, though, and I’m in. (It’s not like I watched any football games this year anyway.)
Abbi and I were having a quiet evening with our newlywed friends. At first, the evening was quiet: a sweet recollection of the couple’s honeymoon in South Africa. Soon enough, though, the two challenged Abbi and I to Beer Pong. Soon enough, though, there was an audience. Soon enough, though, I was hooked.
Chris and Meg? Beat ‘em. Peggy and Meg? Beat ‘em. Samji? Beat her. Nicole? Beat her. Tony? Beat ‘em.
Three hours, five wins, and a few yellow plastic cups later, I am the undisputed champ (including one head-to-head competition with bassist Tony Maceli). Sure, I danced on The Abad’s couch with my fists pumping high above my head, but more importantly, I won.
Oh, and I hear the Colts did too.
But they’d played football before last night. And they didn’t have to chug a beer every time the other guy scored.
Rematch, anyone?
Besides, Vol. 2
It’s barely February, and it’s was barely ten o’clock in the morning, but already my head was spinning with the question, “How am I going to get it all done?”
Abbi and I were discussing it all over coffee: the live album, the “from the vaults” album, the documentary. It was beginning to feel like a little too much.
Worse, with numerous interviews, broll and pickups left to shoot, not to mentions hours of scripting, editing, voice over, and scoring, the September Sundance was beginning to feel like the day after tomorrow.
Something had to give.
“What’s it going to be, then?” Abbi asked. “What’s your priority?”
“Mister Rogers & Me,” I asnwered.
The first step was to cross something off the list. And so I wrote Tommy over at Rockwood Music Hall. “Hold the thought on my proposed March 24/May 5 live CD recording/release,” I wrote. “But I’d like to put together a benefit night in support of the documentary I’m writing/directing.”
The next step was to outline the next six months: raise some money, hire a production assistant, keep seeking and shooting interviews, and start rough cutting.
Still, I couldn’t let all of my musical projects languish, especially the one that was half done. So I finalized the track listing for “Besides.”
I’ve been digging through my closet for a few weeks now, and I think I’ve unearthed that last of it.
In all, I found some 42 previously unreleased songs (Morning Mix MP3s notwithstanding) spanning the last (get this) fifteen years of studio recordings.
After careful pruning, I’ve arrived at the following (get this) double album:
Besides Vol. 1 (1993-1997)
1 Crossing To Safety
2 Wax & Feathers
3 Rebecca
4 Flood
5 Keelhauling
6 I-90
7 Late November Mind
8 She Said She Said
9 Kathryn (Of A Thousand Faces)
10 Five Star Day
11 Message In A Bottle
12 Manifest Destiny
13 The Michael Song
14 I’ve Been Waiting
15 Debris
Besides Vol. 2 (1998-2003)
1 Wishes
2 Christopher Street
3 Beholden
4 Untitled No. 1
5 The Rest Of My Life (Demo)
6 Annalia (Come Back Home)
7 Golden Wings
8 She’ll Come Undone
9 California (Demo)
10 Intent On St. Paul (Demo)
12 Radio (Demo)
13 Shiver (Demo)
14 Babylon
15 Who You Are
I think of these songs as spackle. They’re the pasty white stuff that holds the place together. Most of these songs were recorded between album cycles (like tracks 1-4 which were recorded between “Almost Home” and “Love & Other Indoor Games”), or simply didn’t fit with the sound (“Annalia”) or the subject matter (“Golden Wings”) of whatever album for which they were recorded (“Almost Home” in both cases). Some are solo acoustic demos that found their way to the full band.
Many have seen some light of day (the first five on Vol. 1 constitute 3/4 of my debute release, “Always Almost There,” of which I pressed exactly 50 copies… on cassette!), but none of them have been mastered or available for widespread release (as they will be on iTunes).
Trolling through all of these lost songs has been kinda’ embarassing, kinda’ cool, and kinda’ sad. There are some rediculous turns of phrase (“I am finally free / Come and fly with me” on “Crossing To Dafety”), and some eloquent ones too (“Each moment she spends suspended in air / A dance of dreams and everything that never was there” on “Rebecca”). It’s a little like hauling out stuff you drew with crayons, craypas, and pastels.
Still, I like the idea of letting it all float out there in the ether.
I’m sending Vol. 1 off to Jon Locker tomorrow (Vol. 2 is already mastered). I don’t imagine there’ll be a lot of fanfair around their eventual release, but stay tuned. ‘Cause thereis gonna’ be a lot of fanfair around the “Mister Rogers & Me” benefit concert.
The Optimism Of The Will
“My name is Benjamin Wagner,” I said, firmly shaking Bill Moyers’ hand. “I am the young man with the fire in his belly who has been doggedly pursuing you for my deep and simple documentary about my relationship with Mister Rogers.”
“Oh yes,” he said, looking up from under his glasses. “Oh yes.”
* * *
I was leading a meeting on viral marketing late this afternoon when the email hit my inbox. “Seems Bill is taking action on the UWS!” Abbi wrote. She had happened upon a blurb about the PBS documentarian’s activism against Upper West Side development (see “Historical Society Throwdown on the UWS”), revealing in the process that the PBS documentarian (and elder statesman for all that is good and right) is also my neighbor.
“And,” she followed, “It seems he’ll be at Barne’s & Noble tonight!”
I cancelled my plans (“I’ve just learned Bill Moyers is doing a reading on 17th Street at 7pm,” I wrote Chris, Tony and Ryan. “I HAVE to go for my film; we’ve been trying to interview him for months“), and raced through the remainder of the day nervous like a schoolboy after learning of a pop quiz.
The moon was full and buffeted by billowing clouds as I walked through Union Square. As I approached Barnes & Noble, I spotted a sign in the window that read
The New School Presents:
Democracy In Media
Moderated by Bill Moyers
Featuring
Walter Isaacson, Michael Massing, and Ann Deavere Smith
Just inside the door, a display touted Mr. Moyers recent book, “Welcome To Doomsday,” as well as his best seller, “Moyers On America.” I grabbed copies of both, and then climbed three flights where a gathering of two hundred PBS die hards were already seated. I found a seat in the front row, took off my jacket, pulled my notebook and camera out of my bag, and waited.
The panel, featuring former CNN Chairman and current CEO of Aspen Institute Walter Isaacson, Columbia Journalism Review editor Michael Massing, and playwright, actor and Stanford professor Ann Deavere Smith, took the stage mere moments later. I smiled to myself when I spotted Mr. Moyers, certain that, as the youngest audience member in the front row, if not the room, he would think right away, “There’s that pesky documentary kid.”
The group tackled the weighty subject of the role of media in a democratic society, the risks of that role, and its recent failures, with insight, enthusiasm, and humor.
“Media exposure,” Mr. Moyers said, “is the common denominator of ambition.”
“Real news,” he followed, quoting playwright Tom Stoppard, “Is the news we need to keep our freedom.”
Through the panel’s exploration of consumerism (“In a business society as we are, commercial considerations infiltrate and subvert almost every institution,” Mr. Moyers said), media consolidation (“Are we too obsessed with what may be an obsolete form of mass communication?” he asked), poor reporting (“I really believe the dearth of good reporting is the greatest danger to journalism,” Isaacson said), consumer disenfranchisement (“Maybe we’ve grown to comfortable?” Ms. Smith mused), and the subtleties of post September 11 censorship (“I call them the “patriotism police” Mr. Isaacson said), I kept asking myself, ‘What are you doing still working for The Man?’
When the panel yielded the floor to questions, I fantasized about dashing for the mic, identifying myself to Mr. Moyers and asking, “So what do I do?” When I turned to spy a line of questioners thirty septuagenarians deep, I reconsidered. One audience member asked, “What do you tell young journalists?”
“The opportunity to be creative and signify are fewer and fewer,” Mr. Moyers responded. “But if you have the fire in the belly and you feel the fire by reporting upon that which you see around you, then stay with it. Never give up hope.”
As the panel wound down, it revealed its disparate perspective: Issacson, the technological optimist; Massing, the academic pessimist; and Smith, the hopeful centrist.
“I have to first differentiate for you between hope and optimism, because I think there¹s a difference,” she said. “And this is from someone some of you know fairly well, Cornell West, the scholar? He says,
Optimism and hope are different.
Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there’s enough evidence out there that allows us to think that things are going to better, much more rationale, deeply secular. Whereas hope looks at the evidence and says it doesn’t look good at all, says we’re going to make a leap of faith, go beyond the evidence and attempt to create new possibilities that become contagious to allow us to engage in heroic actions, always against the odds, no guarantees whatsoever. That’s hope.
Mr. Moyers, then, supplied the final word.
There’s an Italian philosopher who’s had a big influence on me, his name is [Antonio] Gramsci. He talked about practicing pessimism of the mind and the optimism of the will, and by that he means — and I take this as a journalist — my job is to look around and describe the world as it is without any whitewash or illusions or romance. To say, “This is how the world looks. This is what’s happening in the world.” That’s the pessimism of the mind. To look around and see that all the signs add up to potential calamity, whether it’s global warming or the clash of civilizations or the uncompromising nature of present American politics.
But, as a human being, as a father, as a husband, as a citizen, I don’t know how to live in the world except to expect a more confident future and then, get up every morning and try to do something to bring that future about. That’s the optimism of the will. I will myself to try to change the realities that I see that are so disturbing.
Moments later, when the applause gave way to a dull chatter, I was third in line for Mr. Moyers’ signature. My heart was in my throat as I repeated my introduction over and over in my mind. Soon, I was standing before him — the man whose wisdom and insight I have been seeking for months — extending my hand.
“My name is Benjamin Wagner,” I said, firmly shaking Bill Moyers’ hand. “I am the young man with the fire in his belly who has been doggedly pursuing you for my deep and simple documentary about my relationship with Mister Rogers.”
“Oh yes,” he said, looking up from under his glasses. “Oh yes.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I followed. “And to hear you speak tonight.”
“Well, thank you he said,” scribbling in my book.
“I hope you can understand my tenacious pursuit,” I said.
“You know,” he replied almost sheepishly, “I just don’t know that I have anything to say.”
I paused a beat, speechless, then squawked, “All right. Thank you.”
“Talk to… talk to…” he said, looking at the line behind me.
“All right,” I said stepping away. “Thank you.”
“All right,” he finished.
I walked away swearing at myself. ‘Talk to whom?’ I wondered, navigating the crowded room. ‘Talk to whom!?!’
I rode the escalator three flights, paid for the book, and pulled on my jacket, all the while assaulting myself for being such a coward. ‘Speak truth to power!’ I said to myself. ‘You idiot.’
On the street, I put on my headphones, but didn’t push play. ‘Mister Rogers called for daily reflection,’ I thought to myself. ‘Don’t drown out your thoughts with music.’
I beat myself up all the way to the subway, frowning when I caught glimpses of myself in car windows. ‘You failed,’ I thought. ‘You failed.’
Waiting for the 1 inside the 18th Street station, I opened my copy of “Moyers On America,” and read the inscription.
“For Benjamin,” it read.
His cursive was thin, long, and as unreadable as a doctor’s. I puzzled. An allowed spirit? An alloy spirit? An aligned spirit? And then it hit me.
For Benjamin,
A kindred spirit
Bill Moyers
I continued beating myself up as the train headed uptown. Somewhere between Times Square and 72d Street, though, I thought, ‘You should have asked Mister Rogers what to say. You should have asked Mister Rogers for help.’
And then, staring out the window through my reflection I head his voice in my head.
“You’re doing fine, Benjamin,” Mister Rogers said. “You’re doing fine.”
Interference, Inc.
This kills me.
The city of Boston was brought to a standstill Wednesday by a bunch of Lite Brite-lookin’ viral advertisements for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
How on earth is that possible? How on earth are all those The Olds (police, government officials, journalists) so out of touch that they can’t distinguish four batteries and some blinking lights from a bomb?
“To us, they’re so obviously not suspicious,” King County (Seattle) sheriff’s spokesman John Urquhart said of the lighted cartoon figures that had been adorning his city for weeks.
