Reading Journal #4

For this week's assignment I think I found a great article in the L.A. Times that is about a group affected by the news and a story that I think the author did a great job of really spending time with sources. The story, "In Indiana, ripples of discontent with Obama" by Seema Mehta is about struggling Midwestern states, specifically Indiana, that are unhappy with the lack of results they have seen since Obama was elected. The reason I loved this story so much is mainly that Mehta used a lot of anecdotal stories, like of a wife and husband who have lost their jobs and have been using food stamps and selling their personal belongings to make ends meet. I think the article was so successful in getting it's message across because there was an equal amount of facts, such as how many times Obama has visited the state and unemployment rates that provide solid background information for the reader.

The article struck a really nice balance between politics and how people have been effected by the economy, along with how people's feelings have changed in regard to how they feel about President Obama since he has been elected and how they feel they have been let down, in addition to what they are looking for in the upcoming presidential elections. The second article I read is more from sources that are explaining the news. In "Even Those Cleared of Crimes Can Stay on F.B.I.'s Watch List" by Charlie Savage, Savage discusses how there is an F.B.I. Watch List that people who have even acquitted of crimes or such related to terrorism can still be on the list regardless of innocence.

With this article I felt like the sources were persuasive and adequate because the sources are really official, like from the F.B.I., The Electronic Privacy Information Center and former Homeland Security reps. I think the article was interesting but that it was just so informational that it wasn't really interesting? Like, I felt like I couldn't relate because I'm not a terrorist, a police officer or in the government and it doesn't really effect me.

Article 2- REVISED

EAST VILLAGE- - Since the economic crash in 2008 the St. Marks Bookstore has watched their business slowly decline and their rent increase and is now asking their landlord of the building, Cooper Union, to lower their rent in order to stay open.

The bookstore is co-owned by Terry McCoy and Bob Contant. McCoy was able to comment briefly on the store’s situation, explaining that the store is a sublease because Cooper Union owns the building but not the land and that the negotiations started with the Cooper Union Board of Directors Executive Committee and is now in the hands of the Business and Finance Committee. The store’s rent is currently $20,000 a month and there are escalations annually. “The reason we are asking for the rent to be reduced is because since the crash in 2008 we have made so many cuts that there’s nothing else to cut now. It’s kind of amazing how much we could cut once we worked at it.” McCoy and Contant have been told by the committee that a decision will be reached by the end of October.

McCoy was unsure of what the worst outcome possible might be if the rent is not reduced because of the amount of cuts they have made over the past few years. However he did note that “publicity has been great for business and there has been a surge over the past few weeks in sales which has been a great. People coming in and just buying a book is very helpful.”

Although the decline in sales over the past few years for the bookstore is alarming for the owners, employees and those in the community who have remained loyal customers, some are still unaware of the situation despite publicity. One of the neighboring restaurants to the bookstore is The Barrel, and the bartender Jeremy Bacon said that the co-owner Bob Contant comes in almost everyday for lunch and that he’s “a great customer, very sweet but has not mentioned anything about the store’s situation” and was very surprised when informed about the potential threat of the bookstore closing.

Part of the store’s charm that seems to have kept it as an important landmark is that it is a relaxing and serene environment to browse in, with elements as simple as nondescript music playing such as a volume of “Ethiopiques”, to set the mood. One customer who wished to remain anonymous, said that he has been coming to the store for years and thinks the store’s situation is very sad. “When I moved here thirty-five years ago there was a bookstore and a record store on every corner”. When asked about the increasing trend of bookstores closing and the rise of digital books he felt that “without them it’s very isolating and depressing because it takes away a place to browse and get together and meet people”.

When asked about the store’s unique sections and characteristics in comparison to other bookstores, employee Shauna Westgate reminisced about what used to be a beautiful poetry section, a well-stocked selection of critical theory books and even a section dedicated to anarchy. According to Westgate stock starting declining along with sales about two years ago and many of the unique sections and genres that the store was known for like the ones mentioned above are either dwindling or non-existent now, “it’s just very sad because we know how full it used to be.”

However, as mentioned before by Terry McCoy, sales having been increasing with support in the community and if it continues that will greatly help the store. Westgate hopes that if the support does continue they will hopefully be able to start getting more stock in and start building everything back up to where it used to be.

Article 2 Rough Draft

EAST VILLAGE- - For about the past two years the St. Marks Bookstore at 31 Third Avenue has increasingly been facing the potential threat of having to close after thirty years because their landlord Cooper Union wants to raise the rent beyond what the store can handle.

When asked about the store’s unique sections and characteristics employee Shauna Westgate reminisced about what used to be a beautiful poetry section, a well-stocked selection of critical theory books and even a section dedicated to anarchy. “I wish we had a better answer for you, stock is really low right now and we’re hoping with increased sales because of all of the support we’ll be able to build it back up.”

According to Westgate the store started struggling about two years ago “things started thinning out and it’s just very sad because how full it used to be.”

It is interesting though because the only indication of this looming threat on the bookstore is not extremely obvious when you step inside beside a sign on the front door stating: “Find it Here, Buy it Here, Keep US Here”. Besides that when walking into the bookstore there is a lot of local support in the foyer of the shop with newspapers such as the Village Voice and The Onion, advertisements for local festivals and artists and a review from Citysearch in 2007 titled “If your ex walked off with your only copy of Lacan's "Ecrits," there's only one place to go.”

Once inside the store there is usually relaxing yet nondescript music playing such as a volume of “Ethiopiques”, to set the mood for a serene book buying experience. One customer who wished to remain anonymous, said that he has been coming to the store for years and thinks the store’s situation is very sad. “When I moved here thirty-five years ago there was a bookstore and a record store on every corner”. When asked about the increasing trend of bookstores closing and the rise of digital books he felt that “without them it’s very isolating and depressing because it takes away a place to browse and get together and meet people”.

One of the neighboring restaurants to the bookstore is The Barrel, and the bartender Jeremy Bacon said that the co-owner Bob Contant comes in almost everyday for lunch and that he’s “a great customer, very sweet but has not mentioned anything about the store’s situation” and was very surprised when informed about the potential threat.

Media Journal #3

Looking for different forms of cynicism and skepticism was a little hard for me this week but I think I found some pretty interesting articles that kind of flirt between both characteristics. The first article I found which I thought to be really interesting and kind of ridiculous is from The New York Times, "Robertson Stirs Passions with Suggestion to Divorce an Alzheimer's Patient" by Erik Eckholm. I think Eckholm did a solid job of being more skeptical than cynical because he provided opinions from several sources, even though most of them disagreed with Robertson's controversial statement and words of advice to a caller who was a husband with a wife who has Alzeimer's that "if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again".

I think if Eckholm were really a cynic the article would have focused more on the "treacherous moral terrain" Robertson put himself in from his own perspective and would have given more of his own opinion, rather than just providing lots of quotes about how much criticism and discussion that it brought up. Another article that I found in my search for cynicism was from the Los Angeles Times "Opinion" section, "The Emmys and Tax Credits for 'Jersey Shore' " by Patt Morrison. In this article Morrison discusses the incredible amount of tax credits the show 'Jersey Shore' is allegedly receiving for the first season and how legislators are trying to get the motion vetoed. I interpreted not only Patt Morrison's voice but also the article as a whole to be cynical. He included quotes like that the Republican Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon remarked sardonically that he cannot believe that "we are paying for fake tanning for 'Snooki' and 'The Situation,' and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that."

Along with other quotes that are similar to Assemblyman O'Scanlon's Morrison also makes the point of suggesting that a show such as 'Jersey Shore' could be filmed elsewhere, like other productions have improvised such as how"L.A.'s City Hall has doubled for the Vatican and the U.S. Capitol" or that the "real apartment building in 'Seinfeld'...is actually The Shelley in Los Angeles, west of MacArthur Park". For this article I actually enjoyed reading a cynical point of view because I find the subject to be actually really funny. I also don't think the information could be conveyed without a little cynicism or sarcasm. However, I did find Morrison's ending to be a little over the top with his "don't get too cocky, Jersey, or you’ll find your TV bonanza off-shored and outsourced to a place like Florida, where you can tan outdoors, all year 'round, for free."

I thought it was interesting that when I was actually looking for cynicism in articles I had a really hard time doing so. For some reason this week it seemed that most of the articles were pretty even-keeled. I was kind of bummed I didn't find a true nihilistic journalist who's cynicism just kind of seeped off the page, because I felt like i've found it before but now I don't know where it was. But i'm sure now that I know how to identify it I'll stumble across more in the future.

Reading List:

1) NY Times

2) The Guardian

3) L.A. Times

4) The Wonkette

5) MSNBC News (TV)

6) NPR

7) The Huffington Post

8) The Futility Closet

Reading Journal #2

For this week's readings I focused not only on what seemed true and what didn't but what I was really interested in and what I liked about it. The first article I read was from the Wonkette, "Michelle Obama Plays Fancy Tennis Sport For Obese Children". At first I was kind of offended by the heavy use of sarcasm and jabs at Michelle Obama but after closer inspection I realized that there was actually some truth inside the article. When i read the line "shoving things like fitness and exercise down the throats of America’s children" I was taken aback but by the end of the article I kind of agreed with the author. It's great the Michelle Obama wants to try and transform the amount of fitness and healthy decisions today's children are making but when you see what exactly her tactics are, it does feel like a shoving. The author seemed to really call her out when she was speaking about her love of tennis and how it "is a great sport because even if you live in a poor neighborhood, without tennis courts, you can learn to play the sport once you graduate from law school." This says to me that the author, and probably many others felt a condescending tone from her and the inclusion of law school. What is she really promoting here?

Although the Wonkette is known as "The D.C. Gossip" and they try to be sarcastic and funny in the way they report things, I found it really interesting that the article had more truth in it than I originally perceived and how much I agreed with it. Another article that I read that I found kind of untrue but more just really strange was from the life section of Salon.com, "Want a taste of Ben & Jerry's Schweddy Balls?". The article discusses the new ice cream flavor that is named after a Saturday Night Live sketch. The flavor has been quite the hot topic and I was a little disturbed by the quotes included that to me made them sound almost unreal. One of the actors from the sketch is Alec Baldwin and according to Salon "Baldwin told Time that he's delighted to see "Ben & Jerry's and Schweddy... while Gasteyer admitted, "As a person and a performer, I am a sucker for holiday balls." Just grab the Balls while you can -- Ben & Jerry's is only rolling the flavor out through the holidays.

I'm sorry but doesn't that seem completely absurd in a professional publication? The blatant sexual innuendo is ridiculous that it's so hard to actually think of it as serious. Maybe that was the point of the article, to kind of jab at the blatancy of it all but it didn't seem that way. From the way it was written Salon.com almost seemed to be agreeing with and liking the idea of the flavor that as they said themselves, "could be redubbed Funky Jockeys". I think one of the reasons why I couldn't really be convinced by the article was that the only sources used were either SNL alum Ana Gasteyer, Ben & Jerry's, or Alec Baldwin. I really would have liked to have heard from someone NOT so clearly biased and in favor of the flavor or just someone not so heavily involved with it.

Reading Journal #1

For my first response one of the articles I decided to go over is “Edinburgh University to charge £36,000 a degree” from The Guardian. I really love how beautiful the language that is used in all of the articles is, but especially this one. It almost has a poetic rhythm to it and although the language is also more formal than what is seen in the U.S. I think it’s excellent journalism. I thought the way the author, Severin Carrell, incorporated dialogue and quotes, or lack there of is really interesting because it adds to the more formal element of the article. Quotes are used consistently throughout but it seems like only the most important or most substantial in length are put in quote marks and are not separated from the body paragraphs, like we see mostly in American newspapers.

For example, in the second article I read from the Washington Post, “U.S. colleges seek foreign students for intellectual stimulus, bottom line” the entire body of the article is mostly dialogue from interviewees and consists of many different mini paragraphs of individual quotes. Although the Washington Post article is easier to read than the article from The Guardian I preferred the former just because it’s just more sophisticated and the layout is more pleasing to the eye. The third article I read was a debate from the New York Times titled “College Doesn’t Create Success” which is pretty similar in structure to the Washington Post article in terms of how quotes were incorporated and the style of language.

This debate was interesting because I feel like it’s a relevant discussion today with the economic situation. I know a lot more people these days are questioning whether college experience is worth the price. I know some feel that it isn’t and that they would rather be in the job market actually making money than in tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I liked the Opinion pages of the New York Times and thought it was interesting that now that news is so much online that almost all of the discussion takes place not in the article but in the comments in the forums below.

I also thought it was very telling that there’s so much discussion about colleges lately, especially how much it is costing and whether or not it’s really worth it. I always had the impression that universities in the U.K. were much less expensive than ours in the U.S. but £36,000 is $57,366; which is less than what Forbes’ 2010 “Most Expensive Colleges in the US” list says is the most expensive college in 2010, Vanderbilt University at $53,976 a year. Both the New York Times article and The Guardian article discuss the increasing concern for the worth of education, but the Washington Times article discusses bringing in more money for the university, such as the University of Virginia’s close ties to China and the benefits of the increasing amount of international students for the university.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/05/edinburgh-university-charge-36000-degree

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-colleges-seek-foreign-students-for-intellectual-stimulus-better-bottom-line/2011/08/22/gIQAFeVlwJ_story_1.html

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/08/23/spending-too-much-time-and-money-on-education/college-doesnt-create-success

article 1

On Saturday September 3^rd the East Village had their taste buds rocked due to the grand opening of the first Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on East 7th street between First Avenue and Avenue A.

Starting out as just an ice cream truck in 2009, The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck has clearly left a mark on New York City. With creations that are destined to be savored like the Signature Items, such as the Salty Pimp, the Bea Arthur and the Monday Sundae to name a few, it is no wonder why there was a line Saturday afternoon that required at least a forty minute wait. The shop has also expanded their menu to include some specialties with treats imported from Melt Bakery such as the Rue McClanahan (bourbon ice cream with praline- pecan cookies) and La Newyorkina’s paletas (Mexican popsicles).

As a first time customer I had relatively high expectations for the shop due to what I saw of the menu online and was excited to finally reach the door and be able to drink in the energy of the new shop after what felt like hours in line in the hot sun. As soon as I stepped inside I immediately fell in love with what I now know is artist Sam Simon’s “magic unicorn” that takes up most of the western wall of the shop. I immediately felt like I was in some sort of Disney movie or in Willy Wonka’s factory. While in line with friends the general consensus was that there was a pretty even mix of new customers and old customers. A fellow new customer like myself, New School student Corey Vogel also fell in love with the shop.

“I had heard about the shop from several sources and it held a sort of mysticism for me, everyone loved it so I had to try it. My girlfriend (Jori Schwartz) sprung the idea on me of going to the shop on opening day and the next thing I knew I was waiting in line bubbling with excitement. I got the salty pimp on a waffle cone and I loved it! I'm a huge ice cream enthusiast and this may have been the best I've ever had. I'm already looking for an excuse to go back. Even at $5 a cone, I can see it becoming one of my new favorite places to visit.”

Jori Schwartz, another New School student and Corey’s girlfriend is a huge fan of the truck and shop and had nothing but wonderful things to say about the treats.

“I first heard of the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck on a walk home from school last April but I never had cash on me to try it out. The first time I had it I got a Salty Pimp in a waffle cone and it was delicious! Big Gay Ice Cream is different than any other ice cream to me because it’s not only delicious but also made with love. The server at the truck was very funny and charismatic and that combined with how delicious it is makes me always want to go back for more. I was really excited about the store opening because I liked the fact that I wouldn’t have to chase the truck all over the city anymore and the continuity of it. I also heard through Twitter that Anthony Bourdain and Stacey London were going to be there along with a hired drag queen.”

All in all the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop’s first opening day seemed to have been a great success and although no official rep was able to comment on the day itself anyone passing by clearly saw the mania that is sure to stay at The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop.

Other Sources

1) http://www.biggayicecream.com/blog/

2) http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2011/08/big_gay_ice_cre_8.php

3) http://www.biggayicecream.com/