James Nachtwey's Wish.

For those of you who loved the documentary War Photographer about James Nachtwey that we watched in Prof. Grady's class, you might find his recent acceptance speech at the 2007 TED Conference super interesting. You get to hear more on Nachtwey's philosophy about his role as a documentarian, and you see a great slide show of his work. In TED speeches many speakers make a wish of some kind, an idea that they hope other innovative thinkers will find a way to put into practice. Nacthwey's wish: "...help gaining access to a story that needs to be told, and developing a new, digital way to show these photos to the world." As documentarians coming to age during a new kind of technologic saavy, we might be in the best position to fulfill his wish.

Just something to think about.

Blogfire: An Audio Post

Here's my very first audio blog post. I made it just for you. All you have to do is click on the link below to download the file.

"Blogfire" by Andrea Silenzi

post divorce and unrequited love

he's a stranger so when he picks up the phone i tell him i'm the girl from salt and then i say "so, tell me about..." and i trail off and then he says "--my failed marriage?" he tells me about his failed marriage. and he tells me how much he still loves his ex wife. he tells me about quitting drinking on the same day she left him. he tells me it was too late. then he tells me about his ex wife's new boyfriend who, as it turns out, was accused not long ago of sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl. so he tells the boyfriend to stay away from his daughter or he'd (something) (he didn't say) and then the boyfriend gets a restraining order so that if this man ran into the boyfriend (or the ex wife) at the supermarket he would have 90 seconds to flee the premises. a breakdown of his nine year old daughter followed in which she asked, "why can't you come to my field hockey games when mom can?" and then more meetings with lawyers. and then (and this is where i come in) a desperate, yet endearing posting on craig's list titled: post divorce and unrequited love.

i don't know what to tell you. i was story hunting. i was scared and afraid that a piece about an alpaca pageant would be silly and without depth. i wanted yearning in my stories. sadness, pain, struggle, turmoil, then hope, reflection, a peace. i went to craig's list. i went to the missed connections section of craig's list. and there beneath the notes written to the girl who works the hotdog cart, the other girl with the nice ass on brackett street ("was i on brackett street earlier today?" asked ariel) was this letter about unrequited love from a man desperate to get what he once had back. i thought it might be a story about a man trying to transfrom, about second chances, about forgiveness, about what it must be like to love someone, really love someone, you are not even allowed to stand in the same supermarket with.

so i emailed him. i told him about salt and stories on the radio. and he wrote me back within the hour: "Thank you for your interest in my posting on Craig's List." as if i had inquired about renting a venue. on the phone he was more or less back to his missed connections self: heartbroken, alone, in pain. yet sober and a little proud. i asked him if he thought his ex wife might have seen the letter he wrote her. he said no, that i was the only one who replied to the ad. and at this point it became almost overwhelming clear: what, no really--what am i doing on the phone with this person right now?

we did not stay on the phone for very long. at some point i registered that i was not the right person to reply to the missed connections posting. i was not in fact the right person to be hearing this story. i went with him to a dark desperate place and then i hung up and i went all alone to the salt building to pay the rest of my tuition and transcribe tape from the alpaca farm. it felt awkward and all wrong and the only thing i could think to do was send him a thank you email with only more radio, in this case a link to an episode of this american life, in which a nine year old girl writes letters to the mayor of new york city asking for help in getting her parents to stop divorcing and stay together.

I met Andrea de Leon, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt...

...actually, I didn't even get a t-shirt.

BUT, she did give our class her contact information in case we want to pitch her something once we're alums. Oh, yeah, and she listened to our story pitches and — OK, wait, lemme back up a bit.

See, Andrea de Leon is kind of a big deal in the NPR world. She's the Northeast Bureau Chief, which means that any stories pitched to NPR on this side of the U.S. go through her. She literally hears story pitches all day long, and then she picks out the ones she feels will work on the air. There have been a few Salt alums whose pieces have made it to Andrea's desk and then, wonder of wonder miracle of miracles, onto national airwaves. Oh, and did I mention Andrea's on the board at Salt? This means that not only does she understand what we do, but she really appreciates it. Which makes pitching to her that much better.

It was good to hear Andrea's perspective on story structure, and to see how a professional outfit views a piece. After talking with us, she even gave each of us 10 minutes to pitch our best idea to her and the class. I won't lie, it was frickin' intimidating. You know those nightmares where you show up at school in your underwear and you have to give a speech in class and you lose your book bag and you're trying to write the speech but your pencil has turned into a carp? It felt a little like that. But instead of it being like the part in the dream where people laugh and point at me and the carp swims away, my pitch turned out to be pretty good. I told her my idea and she actually liked it and she gave me a little "good game" sort of speech and I felt a whole lot better. No mocking, no running from class crying...and I was fully clothed. Success!

But I don't want this whole post to get too romantic, because there are some other things to consider when you're dreaming about pitching your piece to NPR. This may come as a shock to some, but there are actually a few differences in what NPR looks for and what we are learning to put together here at Salt.

For instance, even if a Salt piece has a universal theme, we tend to make our stories more specialized to the region, specifically Maine. I think that makes our aesthetic a little more in-depth and personal, because we're not necessarily tailoring the piece for a broad national audience. Mostly we're thinking of what we're doing in an artistic and socially responsible way, not in a marketing-to-the-media-outlets way. I know that seems indulgent, but we're here primarily to tell good stories, and national publication isn't always the end goal. Of course that can come later, if you're interested in sending your story out nationally. But national publication can mean subjecting a wonderfully thoughtful piece to some serious hack and slash editing, just so it can fit the tail-end of All Things Considered. And that can be depressing, especially when we're in such a nurturing environment at Salt; an environment that keeps telling us that the untold stories need to be told. If that doesn't fit NPR needs, does that mean we shouldn't tell them? Does it make the story less legitimate if you send it to a smaller market? Does that make what we're doing unimportant or insignificant, even if we're not selling our pieces after this experience?

I don't know, can anyone else here sound off about what they think is the purpose of the stories they're producing or photographing or writing here? Are you all hoping for national publication, or do you have different goals? Do you think you can make a piece here that is both thoughtful AND perfect for national publication, or do you think the two are mutually exclusive?

Geez, everything I do here turns me into a penny philosopher. I'm gonna go work on my story ideas.

(and no, this is not me in the photo. I wish I could say I'd caught a fish that big.)

People, people who need people . . .

Through Salt, I have found that people are much more open than I am.
People will tell you anything! - and it's amazing and very encouraging.
In only a few minutes, they will tear open every storage box that contains bits and pieces of their lives, pick out object after object, and teach you all about themselves one story at a time.
You will come away with more tragedies and comedies than you know what to do with, and then focusing someone's story into one measely box becomes the real problem.
But it will teach you, sure as hell.