Healthy eating response

This how-to was much better than the one we read last week from Men's Health. I found the expert comments to be much more convincing, the steps themselves to be much more informative, the writing to be better, the premise to be more intelligent, the points to be more convincing, and on and on. This was pretty much exactly how a how-to should read, even if it wasn't particularly eye-opening, and certainly not as eye-opening as I think its writer thought it was.

The intro is much longer than the intro to the previous how-to – it's a full page – but that's easily justified by the fact that the steps (and they are true steps here, not simply separate but related sections) are longer as well. Structurally, it does everything one can ask for from a how-to. The steps come in a logical order, and they're followed up by a neat little addendum that functions well.

The steps here are packed to the brim with information: experts' quotes, statistics, examples from restaurant menus of the points being illustrated. As such, the writer's voice isn't totally allowed to breathe. For a highly informative story like this, though, I don't think that's such a big deal. The article does its job. It isn't supposed to be a pleasurable, aesthetic read; it's supposed to be a wake-up call. Like I said earlier, that child health in America isn't at its best right now isn't necessarily revelatory, but it is important and this article provides suggestions to fix it in however small a way it can. For what kind of article it is, I'm not sure it could have been done much better.

Seduce Any Woman response

That was really dumb.

I like Men's Health for some things. I use a workout that I found in there (The Spartacus Workout) on a semi-regular basis to mix things up at the gym. I think the Eat This, Not That column is interesting. But when it veers into sex and courtship it almost always gets annoying. This article said very little but put that very little in the mouths of experts to make it sound good and insulted me as a reader.

The intro that served as the lead was tame and clearly only there because they needed a lead and not because it contained anything inspired. The sections were neatly laid out and clearly subdivided, but their content was terrible, so the neat organization is basically moot.

I really, really hope my how-to comes out better than this.

Story 2 outline

Fanzine how-to/historical retrospective

-Intro
1. Assemble your team
2. Pick your focus
3. Set up interviews/contacts
4. Put the zine together
5. Print and distribute

Pearls Before Breakfast response

The Washington Post – the source of "The Peekaboo Paradox," my favorite story from the first part of the semester – continues to be nothing short of awe-inspiring. I absolutely LOVED "Pearls Before Breakfast," the sorta-profile, actually-study-of-all-human-beings piece on Joshua Bell's incognito violin performance in Washington. This article was thought-provoking and brilliant at every turn and I have practically no criticisms of it, and the ones I have are petty. Gene Weingarten knocked this one out of the park.

From the lead, I was gripped. It gives a little bit away without revealing the whole picture, but it manages to do so in a way that isn't just annoyingly cryptic, something some articles that try this method are guilty of doing. It kept me intrigued while it revealed pieces of the picture. It even got to the nut graf – paragraph three, by my estimation – before it revealed who the violinist was. And you know what? It didn't matter to me. I was so sold on the article that I was willing to let it take me wherever it wanted to, even considering its rather mammoth length, which, far from bothering me, left me wanting even more.

Structurally, I liked how it was broken into segments based on different people from the video and the ways they reacted to Bell's performance. It kept the sections brief and the reading interesting and varied, and I think the structure was a big contributor to how short the story felt even when it was actually quite long. Not much to say other than that the author used structure to his advantage in a big way.

If I have any complaint, it's that the ending is a little forced and even borderline promotional. There didn't need to be some tie-up to this story about Bell, because the story isn't about Bell. I don't care that he's coming back to the States to accept an award, because this story is more about the way people react to staggering works of genius (sorry, I know Bell wouldn't approve) when they're out of context, not about this particular violinist. Such a minor complaint, though. I absolutely loved this story.

The Courage of Detroit response

Okay, maybe I'm missing something, but I thought this article was basically a trainwreck. I like stories about tortured sports franchises and about standing fast in support of your hometown and all that jazz, but the writer inserted himself into the story so much that this was just a painful reading experience.

I thought the anecdote about getting Barry Sanders, Steve Yzerman, Cecil Fielder and Joe Dumars together was cool, but then it spiraled into a commentary about how players from other cities wouldn't be so humble together. Umm, really? Evidence? The chip on the writer's shoulder as a Detroit resident was so prevalent and annoying that the piece suffered under its own weight.

Structurally, I thought the lead was promising, and when the author started bringing in the "we" and "our" bits I thought he would keep it up for a couple paragraphs at most, and that it would be effective as a result. Instead, the entire thing was done in this kind of overdramatized, us-against-the-world love letter format. There was parallel structure throughout the piece, at the very least, but it wasn't particularly engaging and actually enraged me.

Interestingly, there was an article done by ESPN after LeBron left Cleveland that was similar in tone and subject but infinitely better. Here's the link if you haven't read it: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=101201/Cleveland

Interview questions - Story 2

Since all of my sources are at some level involved in the production of extreme music fanzines, and since this is a how-to and I'd like to gather insights from all of my sources on similar topics, I can ask them basically the same across the board. Here are some that I'm thinking about using:

1) What was the height of fanzine relevance? Are we anywhere near that today?
2) Why do people continue to make print fanzines in the age of the Internet?
3) What are the technical and physical considerations that one must take when publishing a fanzine? Paper, printing press, distribution, writers, contact with bands, etc.
4) Fanzines are the most democratic form of music journalism, eliminating the idea that it has to be done by "real journalists." Who do you think that style appeals to, and why do you think it appeals to them?
5) How narrow of a focus does a fanzine need? Is it dictated solely by the personal tastes of the person publishing it?
6) Why has fanzine culture gravitated toward extreme and underground forms of music? Is it sheer necessity, or do you feel that those bands that fanzines cover share a certain ethic with the zines themselves?
7) The people at a magazine like Terrorizer or Decibel are obviously fans of the music that they cover. What makes your publication a fanzine and theirs not one?
8) What is the process of securing paper and a publisher/press? Does that come before or after the collection of content?
9) How do you get in touch with bands? For those who published zines before the Internet, how was reaching bands different then?
10) Are there legal or copyright issues in interviewing bands and publishing the material alongside photos without a company behind you?
11) How do bands react to being approached for fanzine interviews? Do they differentiate between doing press for a zine with a tiny circulation and an article that's going to show up on one of the major metal sites, for example?
12) (For the zine publishers whose works have been compiled through Bazillion Points) What was it like going through a for-profit publishing house when the ethos of fanzines was so fiercely DIY? How did you decide that granting them permission to publish your zines was the right choice?

More will undoubtedly come up as I start to build the backbone for the article but I think these are a good start.