Tag Archives: writing

Puzzlement

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I’ve been meaning to write about this post from Merlin at 43 Folders for a couple weeks now. In part, because I think it’s a great outline for how to find a voice and throughline for your own blog, but also because it helped crystallize a few things about what I’m trying to do here.

Despite what the timestamps on this blog say, I started OMIC in 2005. And then promptly abandoned it until 2007. At that time, I felt I needed an outlet for topics I wanted to address that weren’t appropriate for the TOC blog, though the line between the two is often blurred. (This week is a good example of that blurriness as my obsession with ChuffPo has led to posts here and at the TOC blog, including this week’s screed on one of the worst posts I’ve ever read anywhere).

I’ve had some fits and starts with projects here. The Living in Oblivion series (which started as a form of writing discipline and quickly became more a burden than I intended) and the 25 in 12 posts (which I abandoned because I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to say in them) to name two. Both failed because I didn’t allow them to be fluid, they were too tied into expectations (my own) and a sense of what they were Supposed To Be.

And that’s something that’s been holding me back here: a notion of what this blog is Supposed To Be, rather than just Letting It Be. It’s why this was a dead blog for two years. It was as if I was staring at 1000 puzzle pieces and trying to figure out what picture they formed, instead of just picking up a couple of those pieces and seeing how they fit together.

All this is a long-winded way of saying I think I’ve finally been able to figure out how to properly curate this thing. These are ideas that have been bubbling around in my head for a little while and Merlin’s post – not all of it, but some – helped crystallize that for me.

You may have noticed that I’ve been writing a lot about social media and the Web. It’s a passion for me right now, and there’s lots to talk about as there are lots of people doing it right and lots of people doing it wrong (ahem, AMC). That will continue here. But I’ve also got more to say about my non-work-related interests like books and music.

Rather than restricting myself or creating a structure, I’m just going to start with a few pieces at a time, and see how they fit together. So forgive me if this post seems to be telling only half the story about what’s next. But think of it like “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story in that it’s pretty much what you’ve come to expect prior, but still signals some interesting developments in the next act.

Lessons from the Web

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Back in Jaunary, I had a little fun with Chicago magazine. Annoyed that they were taking too long to post an online version of its “171 Great Chicago Websites” story – even though the print version had already been out for weeks – I had one of our interns write a blog post listing every site they mentioned, along with a link to it. It was a tweak of their nose for not understanding the medium of the Web and as a bonus, it ended up being a nice traffic boost for us.

This week, Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 wrote a post titled “What Magazines Still Don’t Understand About The Web” that details his frustration over a similar situation: Wanting to write a post about a story in The Atlantic, he discovers it isn’t available on their site, even though it’s available in print and – as he later discovers – available via Google. He doesn’t go to the trouble of posting the thing himself but maybe he doesn’t have an intern.

I’m not ignorant to the difficulty of balancing a print product and a site that’s largely built on what appears in it. I have it easier with TOC in that it’s a weekly. Most of our subscribers receive the magazine on Wednesdays, and the new content is always available on Thursday at the latest. If there’s something particularly exciting – food/drink content or something related to a weekend event, we’ll push it live earlier. So we don’t have near the delays associated with a monthly like The Atlantic or Chicago magazine.

Why not make everything available immediately? Partly it’s because of the way our metrics are assembled; Utilizing specific dates when we push new content out helps us to understand how people use our site. And we’ve – and by that I mean me, I guess – become adept at how to serve new content out to people each day of the week using this schedule. There’s something to be said for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” There’s also a production/time aspect, too: Just because the articles themselves are ready to go, doesn’t mean the rest of the site is ready to show it off. But if I knew that content was already out there in print form, I’d absolutely move it live on the Web ASAP. Because I know that someone else would, whether that someone is Google or someone like me.

The real challenge, though, is this: Using the Web to provide more context, information and value. For example, this week’s TOC feature story is about tourist spots and how even a jaded city-dweller can find the fun in them. (Yours truly braved the wilds of Excalibur for the first time in ten years, and you can read all about that here.) On the Web, we created a spot-the-tourist photo quiz, and had editors name their favorite recurring events that are fun for tourists and locals. In the Web version of the story, you also have quick access to the listings of the places we mention. For reasons of medium and space, you can’t do that in print.

Creating content like this presents its own set of challenges. Someone has to go out there and take the pictures (in this case, Jake Malooley, the TOC Reporter With No Fear. Dude ate a bug once for a story because TOC asked him to), editors need to spend extra time selecting events, in addition to all their other work, and someone has to link to all the event listings. To really create exciting Web content, you need more people power. And yet every time you turn around, magazines and newspapers are letting go of their employees. As Karp notes, related content about what’s in a magazine is easily available via Google so it’s the job of a magazine to create content that satiates the reader’s desire for more.

So in addition to Karp’s complaints about what magazines don’t understand about the Web, I’d add “that just getting the story up on its site isn’t enough.”

It's all downhill from here

Music,

In this week’s TOC Theater section, you can read the apex of my journalism career: an interview with former Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung.*

A couple tidbits about this interview that don’t appear in print:

* In setting up the interview, DeYoung left me a voicemail that ended with him saying the following: “Alright? ALRIGHT? ALRIIIIGHT!” Reading this doesn’t do it justice, but imagine his voice getting both louder and higher until he hits the final “ALRIIIIGHT!” in perfect Rock Falsetto.

* When I called him back to set it up, he gave me both his office and cell phone number so I would have no problem reaching him. This was important because he, in his words, has “Rockzheimer’s” and forgets stuff.

* In response to a question about what his wife would say is the secret to staying married to a musician for 38 years, DeYoung mentioned the need for patience, kindness, understanding…and then began reciting the lyrics of “The Grand Illusion”. “I wrote that 30 years ago, it’s all right there.”

DeYoung was a really decent guy, and this was the most fun I’ve ever had during an interview. I’m really happy with the way this turned out, mainly because you really do get a sense of what he’s like to talk to, particularly bits like this:

TOC: Were you exposed to musical theater growing up?
Dennis DeYoung: Absolutely not. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I was exposed to the White Sox and “Do you want that beef dipped?”

RIMSHOT!

Somehow, I managed to remain professional and not ask him what the deal was with a song like “Lorelei,” which extols the very un-rock virtues of cohabitation.

* Sorry this blog has exclusively become “Stuff I Do At Work.” I promise to get back to blowhard-y opinions about music and pop culture next week. But come on: “I want that beef dipped” didn’t kinda make your day a little?

SXSW wrap-up

Music,

My final post on SXSW went up Sunday night, complete with my top five acts and bottom four (hint: I will not be picking up the Juno soundtrack). While I did see some middling shows, I was unable to name more than four bands that I thought were really lousy, which says a lot about this year’s SXSW.

Also, in this week’s issue, you can read my top five picks of SXSW acts that will be touring here soon. Clare and the Reasons aren’t coming here so they got bumped, and if I had to do it over again, I’d swap Saul Williams out of there for Fleet Foxes, who I just learned are opening a Schubas show for Blitzen Trapper – I’m afraid they’ll be overshadowed by their much-buzzed opener – on April 6th. If I were you, I’d get tickets right now as that sucker’s gonna sell out fast. I will personally refund your money if you don’t dig that show.

TOC tackles blogs

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This week’s Time Out Chicago is devoted to an important question: as blogging and user reviews become the most widely-read forms of reviewing and criticism, how do you know who to listen to?

The answer is simple: Read more.

I’ll just dispense with two bits right off the bat: anyone who doesn’t take blogging or amateur review sites like Yelp seriously is an idiot and anyone who doesn’t read any critic or reviewer with skepticism is too.

I wrote the lead story in the feature package, in part because I was so mouthy about how it should be written during the early brainstorming sessions that the Features department finally called my bluff and said “OK, you write it then.” It’s already engendering a little hysteria on the Yelp forums – hysteria that quickly dissipates when someone actually reads the piece.

I’ll admit to being in the pro-blogging camp, thanks to my time at Chicagoist; there is simply no better medium than blogging for writing about the immediacy of culture. But even though it’s a medium that’s been around for a decade, people are still coming to terms with it as its effects shape the consensus about not just movies and music, but also restaurants, businesses and current events. I believe online writing ought to be treated the same way as print criticism: one should take the time to understand the person who’s doing the critiquing before they can really understand the writing.

This was a risky subject for us to tackle, since the fact that we’re published on paper will automatically make anything we have to say on the subject of blogging seem suspect. And truth be told, this issue was a difficult birth. But overall, I’m really happy with the job we did. We take a critical, but respectful look at online writing that addresses the pros and the cons.

I count many bloggers as friends and acquaintances. So perhaps there was a bit of myopia at work when I began this issue. I think I felt that the Chicago blogging community was much larger than it actually is. We really had to push ourselves to find people in Chicago that were looking at their chosen subjects with a critical voice (and weren’t blogging as an extension of their profession), while not being too duplicative in the people we chose to profile over eight different stories, most of which profile several different blogs. Some fields (theater, food) have more voices than others. But some that you’d expect would be overrun with criticism – music, for instance – were not.

Let me be clear: there are lots of great music bloggers in Chicago. You can click on any of the folks in the Chicago Music Blogs section at right, and find wit, intelligence, and great writing (and Lord knows that blogroll needs and update cos there are lots of people I’m missing). But the folks who are writing actual criticism – writing that puts the works they discuss in context and measures what the artist is trying to do against what they accomplished – are rare. The field is still wide open for someone to step in and have an influential voice. And this isn’t just me saying this. Most of the folks I talked to, bloggers and professional critics alike, had a tough time naming local online writers they checked out on a daily basis.

But it’s really true of any field of culture right now, despite the fact that Chicago magazine is able to name 171 great websites* in the city. There’s a lot of information out there, to be sure. But the world could really use someone to put it all in context. That ought to be a challenge to anyone reading this. Frankly, it ought to be a challenge for me to do more with this space than just making snide comments about 80s metal, but I could use a break from work sometimes.

I’d encourage you to read all the articles in the package, but in particular check out the online roundtable featuring local print and online critics and the rundown of amateur critics’ blogs we found most worthy of bookmark status.Oh and my piece, of course. But you’ve done that already, right?

* Their story is more about informational websites, rather than critical/reviewing websites. It’s something you’d be able to see for yourself if the damn thing was posted. I know what it’s like having a small Web team, Chicago magazine. But get this story online already!

The week ahead

Music

Obviously, I’ve been too busy to post because I’ve been doing some consulting for the Trib’s Steve Johnson.

Just kidding, TOC bosses! Not getting any on the side! Love my job, please don’t fire me!

I’m rocking a new laptop, but the fried motherboard on the old machine has prevented me from pulling my old hard drive data, which had some planned post ideas on it. So things will continue to be a bit spare here, but I encourage you to check out the TOC blog over the next week, as I’ll be posting reviews of tonight’s Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings show tomorrow, as well as a review next Wednesday of a solo show by Dan Wilson, formerly of Semisonic (or perhaps the review I turned in last week of the Bobby Bare Jr./Lucero show).

It’s interesting: I still really love Semisonic, but when I listen to their early albums, they sound a little dated. I don’t mean that as a slam – I feel the same way about Material Issue’s International Pop Overthrow – but it’s hard to divorce that music from its time, even if Wilson’s way with a lyric and a hook comes through loud and clear on the song he co-wrote for the Dixie Chicks (“Not Ready to Make Nice”).

Finally – last plug* for the 9-to-5, I swear – if you’re at all interested in the Chicago theater scene, you really ought to check out the writing that the TOC staff has been doing on our blog. The work they’ve been doing there has been heartily embraced by the local community, in large part because they’re willing to write honestly about what’s going on locally, even if it means catching flack from the 800 pound gorillas that are some of the major theater producers in town.

* Last plug today, that is.

Pizza'd out

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Due to a fried motherboard on my home machine, I haven’t been posting here. But even if things were A-OK on that front, I’ve been busy with a work project to go along with this week’s Time Out Chicago pizza issue, so I doubt I’d have been all that active anyway.

This is the first time we’ve ever done a pizza issue, in part because it seemed a little obvious. But I think we did a solid job with this, and we will no doubt cause a little controversy with our pick of Coal Fire’s Margherita pizza as the best in the city, along with the whole deep-dish vs. thin crust debate (I’m on the deep-dish side a.k.a. “the side of the angels.”)

In addition to all the kinds of things you’d expect from TOC on a topic like this, I put together a video of local chefs from some of the city’s best pizza joints talking about how to make a Margherita pizza. The reporting and camera work were done by freelancers but it was up to me to edit down five hours of video into some snappy video clips. You can see the results here.

Goulet!

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I posted something about the death of Robert Goulet on the TOC blog yesterday. I don’t have much more to add to that, except to point you to this 1993 story in the NY Times that fellow TOC‘er Tim Lowery hipped me to that tells you everything about the way Goulet crafted his persona. Plus, here’s a little lounge action for you with the near-definitive version (apologies to Sammy Davis Jr.) of “What Kind of Fool Am I?”

MP3 – Robert Goulet “What Kind of Fool Am I”

TOC wants to sex you up

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I’m sorry to say I didn’t write any of the articles in TOC‘s sex issue, now on newsstands and online. But it doesn’t mean I’m not proud of what we put out there. I’ve liked the magazine since before I worked there, but I think we’ve been on a streak of excellent issues lately.

While we don’t shy away from the TOC voice, we still managed to write about an adult topic for adults, rather than layering the whole thing with innuendo and suggestion and robbing it of any weight and information. The whole thing is a great read, particularly our sex survey of Chicago (or rather the TOC readership) that was the result of a bunch of work on the online side.

As I said, I didn’t write any of this but I did enjoy putting together this morning’s sexed-up home page. Wednesday is usually my roughest day at work because we’re there late putting up the new pages. One of the highlights of my day is writing the dek for that week’s In & Out column (by our sex and relationships columnist Debby Herbenick who wrote the lion’s share of our feature package). So getting to write an entire page full of things like “Furries, age play and clown sex. Or as we like to call it: a TOC staff meeting” was a nice way to break up the day.

Visually speaking, there’s not too much in the package that’s NSFW. I’d suggest you wait until you get home before curling up with the public sex stories though.