Program scripts from week of October 28, 2013
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
NaNoWriMo13
Much to my surprise I note that I have not talked about National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo, in almost three years. With November knocking on the door, that is the month in question, I thought this would be a great time to mention it again.
If the name rings no bells for you let me review. NaNoWriMo is an annual opportunity to live the dream. The dream of writing your own novel. The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. The core idea is to worry less (in fact, not at all) about the quality of your writing. The goal is to get you to create a habit of writing, to try something you’ve never tried before. Or even better to help you finish what you have tried and failed at before. Last year 341,375 people started the challenge, 178,211 completed the challenge. The great thing is that you don’t have to do it alone. There are online forums where you can compare notes, ask for help, look for or offer encouragement and find a shoulder to cry on when you hit one of the tough spots. Many regions of the country even have write-ins, opportunities for folks taking the challenge to get together, hang out and write. It is one of the more amazing events I’ve ever done.
And yes, I’ve done it. In 2009, at my daughter’s urging, I gave it a shot. My certificate from the Office of Letters and Light proclaiming that I had achieved the 50,000 word target in the month hangs proudly near my desk. The goal had been to do it again the following year but my stroke intervened. I’ve never managed to get it together again since then.
However, once again at the urging of my daughter, no let’s be honest, at the outright command of my daughter, now a Masters of Fine Arts Candidate in Creative Writing at Carlow University, I am trying it again this year.
It’s really NOT about whether or not you are the next Ernest Hemingway, Anne Rice or Dan Brown. It’s about pushing yourself to try something new. It’s about finding a new way to express your creativity. NaNoWriMo says of itself that it is about “...Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline...”.
So what about you? Are you up for a challenge? Have you ever thought that you might have an idea for a book in you? There is still time to get ready. Who knows you may start November as an auto mechanic, a store clerk, a middle school English teacher or a talking head on the radio. But you could end it as a novelist.
(It's not too late to start! Check out NaNoWriMo.org)
October 30th, 1938 the radio series “The Mercury Theater on the Air” offered up a dramatization of H.G. Wells novel “The War of the Worlds”. The production was the work of a then up and coming star Orson Welles. He had made his mark already as a stage director and his career in films was still in front of him. This was the event that made him a star.
That Halloween broadcast, with its use of fictional news reports “breaking into” the programming, was a sensation. It’s hard for some to remember what radio was like in those days. Where we watch TV or the Internet for amusement these days radio held the stage then. But there was no way to know what exactly you were listening to as you scanned up or down the dial. Since “Mercury Theater” ran commercial free there were no breaks in the action which probably added to the confusion between fact and fancy.
Beyond the fascinating work in the original broadcast (I own a copy of it and have listened to it multiple times) it was the stories of panic associated with it that first drew my attention. For any art form to create that kind of reaction was thrilling to me. Today we know that much of the legend around the panic is exactly that, legend. While many people did call the radio stations, the police and the newspapers, very few barricaded themselves into the house or ran panic stricken into the streets. Psychologists have noted that the world was in a stressful place that week, with fear of the war in Europe spreading to our country.
For me the radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” remains a touchstone for all that media can be when it puts some effort into it. “Mercury Theater on the Air” was a relatively small player in the media world at the time. It was Welle’s attention to detail, careful planning of when certain events appeared in the broadcast and his commitment to making it as realistic as possible that took just another radio drama on an October evening to the status of legend.
I still believe the media can be that good. Take the time this week and spend an hour with a classic. 75 years ago we were shown just how incredible imagination can be.
This week I need to offer a confession. A mea culpa to try and make up for contributing to some stupidity earlier in my career. It would be easy to make excuses but in the end what I can try to do it is make a change.
Do you remember the story from 1994 about the woman who spilled coffee on herself then sued the fast food restaurant that sold it to her and was awarded 2.9 million dollars? Most of us do because it was a big story back then. People were outraged and media folk like me had a field day with it. There was much mocking of a person dumb enough to put hot coffee between their legs while driving and much outrage over the “ridiculous” amount of money this foolish person received. It made us feel all smug and righteous and clever.
There’s only one problem. Most of what I just told you isn’t true.
Stella Liebeck, the 79 year old woman at the center of this story, wasn’t driving the car. She was a passenger and the car was parked at the time. The coffee was between her knees because the car didn’t have a flat place to put it while she put in her cream and sugar. When the top popped off the coffee splashed on her causing the burns. The injuries put her in the hospital for 8 days, required skin grafts and two years of treatment. She tried to settle out of court for medical costs, was refused and went to court. The initial judgement from the jury (which actually reduced their award because they noted that Mrs. Liebeck did bear some responsibility for the event) was 2.8 million. The judge reduced that to just over 600 thousand and the final settlement was reportedly below 500 thousand dollars.
That’s a different story, isn’t it?
What happened was that the story got edited down and edited down for space till the version most of us saw had only the minimal details. Sadly the rest was filled in by people trying to fluff out the story. In an age when more journalism seems to be aimed at reducing the footprint of the stories we see it strikes me as a cautionary tale.
Too often I see folks passing along stories that can quickly be shown to be incomplete or outright fabrications. Our laziness in this regard allows falsehood to masquerade in the clothing of truth. That’s something none of us should support.
Stella Liebeck deserved for the true story to be told. It’s taken me 20 years but now I’ve done it.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
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