Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Anybody see ...
... what 43 said just after he walked out on the dais, right before the swearing in? He wasn't miked (obviously), but you could read his lips. He said, "This is a great day for our country."
Monday, January 19, 2009
"Edge Says, 'It's Better'"
On September 23, 2005, we saw U2’s Minneapolis stop on their Vertigo Tour.
I could go on and on about the exactly how much ass they kicked that night (Jon Bream of the Strib wrote that they “blew the roof off the Target Center”), but lately I’ve been thinking about a particularly poignant moment towards the beginning of the show.
My memory is aided by the fact that M was smart enough to call home during the show to memorialize it in a voice-mail (which we still have), and lucky enough that he did it at just the right time, so we have a recording of the lovely little episode I’m about to describe.
They’d opened with the beautiful “City of Blinding Light,” played another song or two, and then The Edge began the opening strains of “Miracle Drug” as Bono stepped forward to speak to the crowd. He thanked everyone for coming and spoke briefly about what he liked about Minnesota, citing first the Mississippi River and then commending the work being done by the physicians and researchers at the Mayo Clinic down in Rochester.
All the while, The Edge continues the soft melody of the “Miracle Drug” intro.
I could go on and on about the exactly how much ass they kicked that night (Jon Bream of the Strib wrote that they “blew the roof off the Target Center”), but lately I’ve been thinking about a particularly poignant moment towards the beginning of the show.
My memory is aided by the fact that M was smart enough to call home during the show to memorialize it in a voice-mail (which we still have), and lucky enough that he did it at just the right time, so we have a recording of the lovely little episode I’m about to describe.
They’d opened with the beautiful “City of Blinding Light,” played another song or two, and then The Edge began the opening strains of “Miracle Drug” as Bono stepped forward to speak to the crowd. He thanked everyone for coming and spoke briefly about what he liked about Minnesota, citing first the Mississippi River and then commending the work being done by the physicians and researchers at the Mayo Clinic down in Rochester.
All the while, The Edge continues the soft melody of the “Miracle Drug” intro.
Then things get a little odd. Bono says:
So we took The Edge down to the Mayo the other day. All the doctors wanted to get a look at him because you know, Edge is from the future.
M and I looked at each other. Edge keeps playing and Bono continues:
And all the doctors and all the nurses gather around him and want to know everything. They say, “Edge, what’s it like in the future?” And Edge says…
Huge pause.
Edge says…
Pause.
… “It’s better.”
The crowd went freaking nuts. And that’s when I started crying.
In some ways, 2005 seems like a million years ago, but since November, I’ve been wondering whether maybe -- maybe! -- Edge is from the future, and he’d had a glimpse of Tuesday.
Photos of Edge and U2 in Minneapolis, Sept. 23, 2005: J.Drury via U2gigs.com
In some ways, 2005 seems like a million years ago, but since November, I’ve been wondering whether maybe -- maybe! -- Edge is from the future, and he’d had a glimpse of Tuesday.
Photos of Edge and U2 in Minneapolis, Sept. 23, 2005: J.Drury via U2gigs.com
Friday, January 16, 2009
“Do the Thing You Can’t Not Do”
There was a time, not that long ago, when I was convinced I wanted out of Communications. (Not the department, but rather the function or field or job description or whatever. Financial services is my industry; Communications is my job.) When I left the Corporate Communications Department (with no job lined up) in 2006, the reason I gave was that I wanted to do something different. My then-boss sent out a lovely e-mail announcement with the subject line, “Laura S. Embarks on New Adventure.”
And God knows I wanted to. I was researching vet tech school and thinking about a job at a gardening center. Various people were encouraging me to write a book. A friend thought she could get me an audition as a cage dancer in a club I liked. I was up for something, anything!, different because I was sick to death of how others’ perceived my job and -- this was the kicker -- got in my face (and my work) about it.
After years of being a professional writer (good writing is necessary but not sufficient for effective communications), I was both insulted and wearied by the near-ubiquitous attitude others had towards the job, which is, in sum: the vast majority of adults think they can write. Because they send e-mails on the job, or have a blog (cough, cough), or got decent grades on papers in college, or because they regularly write letters to friends or family, or maybe because they just like it: people think they can write. And worse, they seem to see nothing odd about telling a professional writer how to do her job.
Think about what that means for someone who has spent decades (I count three of ‘em: I was word-crazy from the get-go -- thanks, Mom and Dad!) honing her craft. I wouldn’t dream of telling a programmer how to code or arguing with a financial analyst about the content of earnings reports. Yet, day after day in my role as a senior communicator, I encountered (and still do, sometimes) folks who acted like they could do my job as well as I could -- or at least, well enough.
These are the people who would call to say, “Why did you change my article?” Why? Because you don’t know the difference between “effect” and “affect.” Because you have no concept of where commas go when there’s a day and date in the middle of a sentence. Because the poor syntax you employed made the sentence factually inaccurate. I got lots of reasons -- you want ‘em all?
Sometimes, I could shut those folks up with a reference to rules they didn’t know: “I made the punctuation changes to comply with Associated Press guidelines, which dictate our usage protocols except when overridden by our internal style guide. This is standard in both corporate communications and journalism; I can direct you to more information if you’d like.” This was usually met with confusion or silence, but almost always made folks back off.
That kind of thing takes a toll. You hear yourself snapping at people who question your (far more informed -- on matters of punctuation, at least) judgment. You find that you feel angry about and unappreciated for your work -- and we Type As generally derive a lot of pride (and perhaps an unhealthy portion of our identities) from the work we do.
So then what? Well, I didn’t quit my job 2006 to get out of Comm; I quit because I couldn’t take the ever-mounting stresses of the department I was in and the impending horrors of a certain merger/conversion (which, as it turns out, wouldn’t happen for another two years). But still, it seemed like an ideal time for a change, to get away from fixing bad grammar and having to defend my efforts.
Except, I couldn’t turn it off, any more than I could when I was employed. I’d drive down Lake Street and wince at the missing hyphens or superfluous quotation marks in stores’ signage. I’d mentally copy-edit restaurant menus -- every one I saw. I’d debate myself about whether to follow AP style in my personal e-mails. I’d mutter corrections under my breath when I heard “that/which” errors.
Two years later, I’m back here, in Communications. Same firm, no less -- although a very different department. And while few things still piss me off more than “How come you changed the headline before you posted?,” I’m a little more philosophical about it than I used to be.
This is partly because I’m surrounded by a team of people who really are grateful for my contributions (and frankly, a lot of them are good writers for being non-writers, you know?). But I’m also a little older and wiser about myself. I know that I can’t stop trying to fix the world’s word messes, even if it’s only in my head, so I may as well do it where I’ll get paid, add value, and have a boss who is thrilled by my ability to nit-pick bad grammar into submission.
Long post! Why now? Two things:
First, I was in a meeting yesterday with Aeric, who started out a coworker and is now a friend (Aeric is not to be confused with coworker-friend Eric aka ETC from The Band). Darcy, also in the meeting, passed out a sample letter that one of our vendors has been using for some time. When I saw “… requests will be handled on a Best Efforts Basis [sic] …” and groaned out loud, Darcy looked at me quizzically, perhaps thinking I was unhappy with something she said.
“She’s just copy-editing; she can’t turn it off,” Aeric volunteered and smiled at me.
Second, this morning, I read an interview on Slate’s new Happiness Project blog that included this exchange:
Q: Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful?
A: Actually, it’s something that was shared with me by the soon-to-be former editor of Lifehacker, Gina Trapani. When I was interviewing her for my book, Career Renegade, at one point she said, “You do the thing you can’t not do.”
And God knows I wanted to. I was researching vet tech school and thinking about a job at a gardening center. Various people were encouraging me to write a book. A friend thought she could get me an audition as a cage dancer in a club I liked. I was up for something, anything!, different because I was sick to death of how others’ perceived my job and -- this was the kicker -- got in my face (and my work) about it.
After years of being a professional writer (good writing is necessary but not sufficient for effective communications), I was both insulted and wearied by the near-ubiquitous attitude others had towards the job, which is, in sum: the vast majority of adults think they can write. Because they send e-mails on the job, or have a blog (cough, cough), or got decent grades on papers in college, or because they regularly write letters to friends or family, or maybe because they just like it: people think they can write. And worse, they seem to see nothing odd about telling a professional writer how to do her job.
Think about what that means for someone who has spent decades (I count three of ‘em: I was word-crazy from the get-go -- thanks, Mom and Dad!) honing her craft. I wouldn’t dream of telling a programmer how to code or arguing with a financial analyst about the content of earnings reports. Yet, day after day in my role as a senior communicator, I encountered (and still do, sometimes) folks who acted like they could do my job as well as I could -- or at least, well enough.
These are the people who would call to say, “Why did you change my article?” Why? Because you don’t know the difference between “effect” and “affect.” Because you have no concept of where commas go when there’s a day and date in the middle of a sentence. Because the poor syntax you employed made the sentence factually inaccurate. I got lots of reasons -- you want ‘em all?
Sometimes, I could shut those folks up with a reference to rules they didn’t know: “I made the punctuation changes to comply with Associated Press guidelines, which dictate our usage protocols except when overridden by our internal style guide. This is standard in both corporate communications and journalism; I can direct you to more information if you’d like.” This was usually met with confusion or silence, but almost always made folks back off.
That kind of thing takes a toll. You hear yourself snapping at people who question your (far more informed -- on matters of punctuation, at least) judgment. You find that you feel angry about and unappreciated for your work -- and we Type As generally derive a lot of pride (and perhaps an unhealthy portion of our identities) from the work we do.
So then what? Well, I didn’t quit my job 2006 to get out of Comm; I quit because I couldn’t take the ever-mounting stresses of the department I was in and the impending horrors of a certain merger/conversion (which, as it turns out, wouldn’t happen for another two years). But still, it seemed like an ideal time for a change, to get away from fixing bad grammar and having to defend my efforts.
Except, I couldn’t turn it off, any more than I could when I was employed. I’d drive down Lake Street and wince at the missing hyphens or superfluous quotation marks in stores’ signage. I’d mentally copy-edit restaurant menus -- every one I saw. I’d debate myself about whether to follow AP style in my personal e-mails. I’d mutter corrections under my breath when I heard “that/which” errors.
Two years later, I’m back here, in Communications. Same firm, no less -- although a very different department. And while few things still piss me off more than “How come you changed the headline before you posted?,” I’m a little more philosophical about it than I used to be.
This is partly because I’m surrounded by a team of people who really are grateful for my contributions (and frankly, a lot of them are good writers for being non-writers, you know?). But I’m also a little older and wiser about myself. I know that I can’t stop trying to fix the world’s word messes, even if it’s only in my head, so I may as well do it where I’ll get paid, add value, and have a boss who is thrilled by my ability to nit-pick bad grammar into submission.
Long post! Why now? Two things:
First, I was in a meeting yesterday with Aeric, who started out a coworker and is now a friend (Aeric is not to be confused with coworker-friend Eric aka ETC from The Band). Darcy, also in the meeting, passed out a sample letter that one of our vendors has been using for some time. When I saw “… requests will be handled on a Best Efforts Basis [sic] …” and groaned out loud, Darcy looked at me quizzically, perhaps thinking I was unhappy with something she said.
“She’s just copy-editing; she can’t turn it off,” Aeric volunteered and smiled at me.
Second, this morning, I read an interview on Slate’s new Happiness Project blog that included this exchange:
Q: Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful?
A: Actually, it’s something that was shared with me by the soon-to-be former editor of Lifehacker, Gina Trapani. When I was interviewing her for my book, Career Renegade, at one point she said, “You do the thing you can’t not do.”
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Just Sayin'
The actual temp at the moment is 19 below. The wind chill? Hovering around 40 below.
I'm just sayin'.
I'm just sayin'.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Highs Below Zero
Posted this afternoon to the Strib's site:
The temperature was in the low teens at 2 p.m. at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, but will tumble well below zero by nightfall and stay there for at least the next few days. Highs might not make it above zero on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and lows will sink to minus 19 degrees on Wednesday night, which would be the coldest night since the mercury sank to minus 24 degrees on Jan. 30, 2004.
Slightly warmer air will arrive on Saturday with a high of 13 degrees expected and by Sunday sunny skies and highs in the 20s are expected, the Weather Service said.
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