What is the deeper meaning behind this poster?
Posted in San Francisco County | Tagged Photos, questions | 1 Comment »
Where I'm at.
Hey y’all. Sorry to have been so long away from posting. I’m in Shannon County, SD, and I’ve been super duper busy getting to know the place and finding my bearings.
Today, though, is definitely one of those days where this whole thing feels to big for me, and I need a break. I’m checking out for the night. Gonna do a little reading, watch a little TV, dick around a little on the internets, and then sleep a lot.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have the time to be back with some more welcome signs and a few other photos—I’ve taken some great ones—an audiopost, and some writing about a mass grave I visited from the Wounded Knee massacre.
Posted in Shannon County | Tagged practicalities, thoughtlings | No Comments »
From the trip to Denver from Ochiltree County & back.
Proud Home of President George W. Bush
Posted in Photos, The Road | Tagged driving, signs, welcome | No Comments »
As you no doubt heard in that last audiocast, the fellowship dinner thrown for me by Perseus Books Group was terrific. It was a small affair with me, Colleen Kinder (author of the book that inspired the fellowship), Peter (the representative from Perseus who oversees the fellowship), Brian (the web guru who helped me set up the audioblog), Daniela (a previous winner), and Megan McDonell, one of the women featured in the book.
We had Texas barbecue in honor of my present location at Blue Smoke, where the mac and cheese was especially terrific. This is me greedily stealing the fellowship check from Colleen’s miserly clutches:
I had to knock her down and she cried.
It occurred to me that it was a little strange to travel all the way from Texas to New York to… have barbecue… but the spirit of the dinner was, of course, perfect. Everyone involved in Delaying the Real World was truly impressive and fascinating and fun.
I think I put it best when it turned out that Colleen and I have a mutual friend we didn’t know about, and she said that she had run into all kinds of similar coincidences putting the book and the fellowship together. “Why does that always seem to happen?” she asked.
To which I replied, “Well, it’s a small world of awesome people.”
Posted in Photos, The Road | Tagged awesomeness, delaying the real world, delicious | 1 Comment »
… for the award dinner, where I’ll finaly meet Colleen and the rest of the fellowship folks. I’ll be making a 32 hour turnaround, including both flights (but not the 7 hour drive to and from the airport), leaving me about 20 hours in New York.
So what am I doing now?
Oh! And another thing! On my red-eye out here I learned that on JetBlue a pillow and blanket now cost $7.00!
Now I know gas prices are hitting the airline industry hard (not to mention, say, the ranchers I met in Texas, who have to drive 40 minutes to the nearest grocery store). But come on!
What’s next?! “To receive your oxygen mask, please swipe card as indicated by the safety information card in the seat-back pocket in front of you”?!
That is all.
Posted in The Road | Tagged delaying the real world, nyc, practicalities | No Comments »
Dude. They have drive-ins here. Drive-INS.
For food. Not just movies!
This is the stuff of childhood fantasy for a kid who grew up in the East Bay. Clearly my own cultural ignorance, but I really didn’t know they were around anymore. I’ve been passing them for about two weeks now–since Kentucky, maybe, or Arkansas?–but it didn’t occur to me to stop at one until tonight.
You order through your window and then eat right there. In your car. To save you the trouble of going in, I guess.
I’m giddy!
(I hope fuel conservation doesn’t put them all out of business. I bet they’re hurting right now as folks drive less to save gas, and money.)
Posted in Ochiltree County, Photos | Tagged delicious, driving, not from here are you?, surprises | 1 Comment »
I’ll be putting up a tab soon for Frequently Asked Questions, to answer the sorts of things people tend to ask me right off the bat when I tell them about this project: Where are you getting the money? Where are you staying? How do you find people to talk to? Do you record the interviews? etc.
But this thought occurred to me.
A lot of people have asked me what questions I ask people to draw out the kind of material that’s useful for the play I’m writing… and come to think of it, what kind of material is useful for the play I’m writing? What kind of play are you writing anyway, Josh?
Now, I have a pretty good list of common questions that I adapt and augment for each individual interview, and I can generally get some pretty great character revealing moments and political information out of interviews that last, on average, about an hour and a half. (I’ll put those interview questions up here somewhere soon.) But I’m not omniscient about this thing. I have a really close view of what I’m doing, which can make it hard to see the big picture. And I have blind spots that are just my own darn blind spots.
So this is the thought that I had:
What would you want to know if you were me? What would you ask?
I would be fascinated to know what (if anything) compels you about this project, and what would make the most interesting interviews to you.
No question is too stupid. Ask it!
Posted in Ochiltree County | Tagged audience participation, big picture, interviews, thoughtlings | 1 Comment »
August 9, 2008
Posted in Ochiltree County, Photos | Tagged driving, signs, welcome | No Comments »
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