The Future of Freelance Journalism, Part 2A: Sweaty Balls
Chi Kung Health Balls. Photo by Chandan Singh
More notes, quotes, tweets, links as well as pick distractions from the confab during Stanford University.**Nb. If we missed Part 1, begin here.
Thursday, Jun 18, 10:45 AM: Clubhouse Ballroom, Stanford University
I RECOGNIZE HIM FROM THE THUMBNAIL photo he runs every month to the single side his A Letter from the Editor. In it, his hands have been featured as prominently as his well-lit cranium. He gestures as if sophistry the span of Bocce balls, joking with an off-camera join forces with about we imagine the unusual heft of his, or someone elses, cojones.
He is ready to go right away as he is there: black suit, dark tie, stiff white collar, cufflinks. He is the best-dressed male in the room. By the prolonged shot. (Mind you, this is California in June. This is the room to that we nearly wore my caulk-and-chain-grease-enhanced cargo shorts, yet ultimately, thankfully, suspicion it some-more prudent to go with the some-more conservative option, the aged Levis.) On the shade beside the dais: the Esquire logo, projected large.
@browndamon: Esquire vast cheese David Granger is about to keynote Future of Freelancing #ffrl #goat #hackshackers #journalism #esquire
@thestrippodcast: Never satisfied how true out of Madmen David Granger of esquire appears to be visually. #ffrl
Esquire, Feb. 2010
Hes charming right out of the gate, ingratiatingly abashed as well as self-deprecating. He speaks in fits as well as starts, similar to the male whose mind runs as well quick for the muscles in his jaw. He jokes. He creates light. He has the facility with PowerPoint. He drops names with palliate Lyle Lovett, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Christina Hendricks.
He! trusts hell be misquoted upon Twitter. Its happened before, itll happen again. And chances are, however it goes, itll sell some-more magazines.
He promises to uncover this roomful of writers in this time of uncertainty why, in his words, the repository is the biggest middle ever invented.
We dont disbelief he will. We hope he does. He fucking better, we think. For why else travel all the approach to the corner of the continent, bombard out the last couple of hundred dollars as well as spend precious prolonged hours indoors upon the beautiful summer day, if not for salvation, or during the very smallest the approach forward?
@thestrippodcast: As most as we suffer the pos perspective of #ffrl, we worry that this is similar to democrats during an Alvin Greene rally, credible themselves he can win.
And so he does uncover us. Granger, that is. Sure, there have been the gimmicks the short story printed as marginalia, the hand-scrawled cover copy (in that we find what George Clooney equates to to the destiny of the planet, etc.), the Augmented Reality experiments, Benicio del Toro heaving the $1200, 5-foot-long, Masonite Esquire logo in to the L.A. River.
But the all innate of paper desperation, he explains, of dullness with the normal parameters of magazining, of continuously asking the question: shouldnt it be more?
The goal, he says, is to have the repository this one, during least, right away some-more than 75 years aged not usually some-more appealing yet some-more essential. And the most necessary component of all? The writing. Good writing, he insists the best sexed up as compulsory (given the marketplace as well as the genre) with good illustration as well as cutting-edge graphic design as well as who knows what multimedia bells as well as whistles newly as well as after to be devised.
@bertarcher: #ffrl Esquires Granger: (Magazines during their best) take words, images as well as design as well as crush them together to have magic.
He gives the quick run-t! hrough o f the small of his favorite Esquire pieces of this still-new century. Theres Tom Junods unflinching mural of The Falling Man (and ourselves) from 9/11. Maybe he didnt jump during all, reads Granger with deep reverence, because no the single can jump in to the arms of God. Oh, no. You have to fall.
Theres Chris Chivers stating from inside the void during Ground Zero, afterwards from the foothills of the Russian Caucasus, afterwards from the uplands of Afghanistan. Without the smallest curtsy of reparation to the likes of, say, Thucydides or Michael Herr, yet blinking, Granger dubs Chivers the best war bard in the story of war as well as writing.
And this, we realize (late in the game, as ever), is how the glossy repository has survived as prolonged as it has, by the ability to sell itself as essential, as the definitive arbiter of culture: Man during His Best, The Best as well as Brightest, The Best War Writing of All Time. Or, as counterpoint: The Worst. The Worst Beers in the World, The Worst Members of Congress, The Worst Movies, The Worst Masturbation Idea.
This is how it will go upon to survive by the delayed destruction of the planet.
But afterwards theres Tom Chiarellas fabulously twisted investigation in to what people will do for how most money: A Thousand Dollars for Your Dog. How does that fit the rubric?
These have been adventurers in to the fringes of human behavior, says Granger. And we can see it now: Granger is upon the side. Hes we do what he can everything he can as well as with good delight to create defensible space for the written word. Hoorah!
And afterwards he gives us Chris Jones upon the prolonged voyage of the soldiers body from Iraq to Fort Knox. Nice one. And Chris Jones upon Roger Ebert.
Ebert, as we substantially know, has mislaid most of his lower jaw to cancer. In the mural Granger puts upon the screen, Eberts once-familiar face is crumpled similar to the melon thats fallen off the truck. The most famous movie critic of all time h! as misla id the ability to talk. Fuck. But hes the writer, Granger reminds us. Hes regularly been the bard (though we mislaid track of it for the while, interjection to his success upon television). And right away his essay his online journal in sold is his oasis, his redemption. And by prolongation ours.
Now everything he says contingency be written, Granger reads (from Chris Jones), either first upon his laptop as well as funneled by speakers or, as he customarily prefers, upon the small kind of paper. His brand new hold up is lived by Times New Roman as well as chicken scratch. So most words, so most essay
I feel the incipient welling of tears. Its something that happens to me, especially prior to noon, when theres the certain kind of news story upon the air wave as well as things have been still the small raw. Maybe the all the coffee, or the miss of protein. Or might be the the sidelong light. It rarely happens when we review something no make the difference how good the essay is. But afterwards we dont customarily review most in the morning, except my own half-formed sentences, over as well as over again, as well as the every day backlog of emails as well as googlealerts as well as pointless blogposts.
Ethan Hill for Esquire
I find myself wondering the extent to that real sadness can be transmitted by internet. Im sure the possible. But it hasnt got me yet. Not similar to public radio.
Anyway, here it comes, right here in the packaged Clubhouse Ballroom with birdsong as well as the gush of the soda fountain by the open windows. Its the crevasse opening along the diseased join in the dam. Theres seepage. It could simply blossom in to the full-on sob (it happens once or twice the decade), not only about Roger Ebert yet re: the whole destroyed condition of the human race, the tragic, in contact with talent for rejection in the face of meaninglessness as wel! l as dev astation.
But we get upon tip of it. And it passes.
Granger says he wasnt awaiting most from the Ebert profile. It was good, of course, yet it wasnt expected to sell as well most magazines. Not similar to the decent joke as well as the well-photographed actress. But there it was: in 11 days the piece brought 800,000 readers to esquire.com. Theres the energy in writing, concludes Granger, not found in any pick medium.
@nijhuism: Chris Jones essay alone assured me! RT @kellymcgonigal: #ffrl Granger keynote has assured me to allow to Esquire.
And so it goes. Grangers staked out an island as well as populated it with the handful of terrific writers. And theres not the chairman in the room who wouldnt similar to to be upon it with them. Its not impossible, he says. Even last year, in the worst year for imitation media in all the short lifetimes, brand new writers broke in. So whats it take?
1) Balls
Plain as well as simple.
2) Balls
You have to experiment, pull the end of whats been done, risk failing, risk being ridiculed. He quotes the unstoppable Mike Sager: Youll never get improved if youre not peaceful to be terrible.
3) Sweat
Dimiter Kenarov, not the brand new bard by any equates to yet brand new to Esquire, brought to the repository not usually good clips, as well as pre-arranged high-level entrance for stating upon the impossibility of withdrawal from Iraq, yet additionally financing from the Pulitzer Center. How could Granger contend no? (@cmonstah: Granger inadvertently described destiny of freelancing: bard has to cover their own expenses, mags simply compensate writers fee.)
4) Sweat
I similar to reporting, he says. In the universe where people increasingly surrogate perspective for facts, stating triumphs. we ask the impossible of my writers: we want them to report the universe so thoroughly they understand it similar to the fiction bard would. The key is the details.
5) Blood
I similar to writers who wr! ite, he says. Writing is not inevitable. Its not inexorable. To presume any of us has something to say, that we can authority an audience, is an brazen act, as well as the good responsibility. And the things that make the difference have been the hardest things to do.
6) Oh, as well as Surprise
If it sounds similar to the repository story, if he can imagine it in the pages of The New York Times Sunday Magazine, fuck it: hes not interested.
In passing, as illustration of only how most chaff there is not only in the universe during vast yet additionally from within, he mentions staff bard AJ Jacobs ongoing 770 pages of ideas. Of that the teeny tiny fraction will have the pages of the magazine.
@erikvance: #ffrl David Granger is the regular guy. A regular guy who will neeeeeever take my pitch. Or the pitches of 99% of us.
To wrap things up, Granger earnings to the idea of bells as well as whistles as well as the internet: the only the equates to to get the word out, he assures us. The internet sucks as well as the been the blessing.
12:26 PM
In the arise of all this, plus the Q&A that does zero to dispell the numbing tragedy between all the festive possibilities as well as the absolutely fucking impossible, as well as hungry, it hits me (again, the small late in the game) that Twitter competence be used as the equates to to connect in the earthy universe with people we competence similar to to meet.
For example, we consider to myself, we could send the approach summary to @nijhuism, the prolific as well as ever hard-hitting inquisitive journalist, contributing editor for the High Country News right away live tweeting from this very same room, something to the effect of:
hey, unequivocally admire your work during HCN. buy we the free sandwich in the courtyard? encounter by the lemonade tank?
Instead, we slide my mechanism back in to the sleeve as well as head out as we was innate alone, that is, yet slightly improved dressed to examine the sprea! d.
In that the male revels in the non-native aroma of eucalyptus, pees upon the sacred dust of Stanford University, witnesses ceviche served similar to the scoop of churned butter, creates note of the accumulation of fellowships as well as pick funding sources for inquisitive broadcasting (links provided), dodges the California Highway Patrol, learns that his father has sliced off the tip of his right index finger in the drive mechanism of an irrigation pump, as well as additionally that bonobos experience self-doubt, is reminded (one some-more time) only how most uncompensated hard-labor is compulsory to qualification the successful repository pitch, and, finally, starts to allocate regard to the idea that the time has come crazy yet it might appear to begin an entirely brand new imitation magazine.
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