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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

He is 25 — and in all his life he has read only one book

My Facebook status update today — and the reactions:
Ramesh Prabhu
For me, civilisation as I know it came to an end yesterday. I met a young man who seemed to be unperturbed about that fact that in all his life — he is 25 years old — he has read only one book, a biography of a Southern film star that he received as a gift.
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Monday, March 17, 2014

How to avoid struggling to make conversation

Have you noticed how people warm up to you when you are able to strike up an interesting conversation with them? I know some youngsters, though, who find it difficult to make the first move. "We don't know how to begin," they tell me. "And we don't know what to say."

GRETCHEN RUBIN
Gretchen Rubin understands your pain. And that is why the best-selling American author has compiled a menu of "small-talk" options for those who struggle to make conversation. Here are the points she makes:
1. Comment on a topic common to both of you at the moment.
2. Comment on a topic of general interest.
3. Ask a question that people can answer as they please.
4. Ask open questions that can’t be answered with a single word.
5. If you do ask a question that can be answered in a single word, instead of just supplying your own information in response, ask a follow-up question.
6. Ask getting-to-know-you questions.
7. React to what a person says in the spirit in which that that comment was offered.
8. Be slightly inappropriate.
9. Watch out for the Oppositional Conversational Style.
10. Follow someone’s conversational lead.

Rubin elaborates on each point, with examples, here: "Do You Struggle to Make Conversation? A Menu of Options for Small Talk".
UPDATE (April 24, 2014): "8 Networking Conversation Starters That Work (Every Time)" — thank you, Tia Raina (Class of 2015), for posting this on Facebook.
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Friday, March 14, 2014

What is an 'editorial'? How is an 'appraisal' different from a 'review'? What does 'op-ed column' mean?

Trust The New York Times, one of the world's great newspapers, to come to the rescue of readers who want to know how to distinguish the different sections in a newspaper. Check out its readers' guide here.
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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Why the writer should be considered the "hero" of a film, any film

An excerpt from a fascinating, penetrating, and rib-tickling interview with Billy Wilder ("The Art of Screenwriting", by James Linville, 1996):

BILLY WILDER AND HIS SIX OSCARS.

THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH
Billy Wilder, one of American cinema's premiere writer-directors, has always maintained that movies are "authored", and has always felt that much of a film's direction ideally should take place in the writing. Like many of the medium's great filmmakers, Wilder began his career as a writer, yet he is unique in the extent of his involvement in the development of the material he has directed. Indeed, he has cowritten all twenty-four of his films.

THE BIG QUESTION
The interviewer: Film really is considered a director's medium, isn't it?

THE EXPLOSIVE ANSWER
Billy Wilder: Film's thought of as a director's medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It's that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot — the telephone book?

And that's only the first three lines from Wilder's response, which is a few hundred words long. The interview itself takes all of 23 pages in a brilliant compilation, The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 1. Each of the 16 interviews with creative geniuses ranging from Truman Capote and Ernest Hemingway to Billy Wilder and Robert Gottlieb is worth the price of the book. Buy it now.
  • Here are just a few of the 24 films Billy Wilder has directed (and co-written): The Front Page; Some Like It Hot; Sunset Boulevard; Double Indemnity; The Apartment. I have ordered the first two from Amazon — the DVDs should be arriving tomorrow, so that takes care of my weekend viewing.
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Friday, February 28, 2014

JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA STUDENTS, REJOICE!

"We’re on the verge of a major boom in the business of journalism, an internet-powered resurgence that will see the industry grow more than tenfold."


 Check out internet wunderkind Marc Andreessen's views on the future of journalism here: "The quantity of news consumed is now growing even faster than the quantity of news produced."

(Thank you for the alert, Swati Revankar Kashi.)
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