In Soon There Will Be No Survivors, the use of portraits, audio and external links to other stories, articles and even maps added a depth and richness to the survivors stories that would not have been there if it were text alone.  Yes, the written stories brought to light some of the horrors of being a holocaust survivor but not in the same way as having the survivors actual voices tell the reader about their memories.  To hear one victim speak about being the only survivor out of eight brothers and sisters in her own words and foreign accent added to the reality of her horrific pasts.

Having portraits of the survivors paired with actual audio from interviews with the survivors was the most enriching element of this profile article.  Any time we can add a face to the name or story helps to personalize the experience for me.  To have a face and actual audio to go with each profile really brought these peoples stories to life.  For history to say these things happened is one thing; to have personal accounts from memory from actual survivors is a totally different experience.

Along with portraits and audio, the author uses a lot of hyperlinks within the text to connect the story with actual data, other articles and even maps to show where the survivors are currently living.  I thought the use of maps was a very interesting inclusion to the story.  Although I do not know much of the geography of New York City, the maps, like the audio, helped me to realize that these are actual people with actual day to day struggles, not just survivors of one of the most horrific crimes against humanity.

Although I liked the inclusion of hyperlinks within the text of the profile, I think there were just a bit too many of them.  Every time I clicked on one, I would have to go back a few lines in the story to remind myself where I was in my reading.  It seemed like an information overload in some cases that took away from the point of the story.

As to the layout of the profile, I enjoyed its simplicity and almost starkness.  This let me focus on the story being told and to look at the portraits without being overwhelmed by flashy colors or violent and sad pictures of the death camps.  We have all seen these pictures and know what they look like.  The simplistic layout allowed me to focus on the profiles and listen to the survivors voices.

The only thing that stuck out to me that could have been done differently is the text that is on the actual portraits in the lower right hand corner.  The color used for this text is a bit light and fades too easily into the background in some of the portraits making them very hard to read.

As far as what I would like to use in my profile that I have learned from reading these profiles, the use of audio can be very powerful.  I am interviewing my landlord who is a Cuban immigrant.  He came to America aboard a very small boat with a handful of other young men.  I plan on recording some of the interview, especially when we talk about the actual journey from Cuba to Miami.  I think it will be very powerful to hear Andres’ story of survival on the open ocean in his own words…he speaks in broken English with a thick Cuban accent, not unlike some of the holocaust survivors.

In both of the selected pieces, we are introduced to two seemingly normal, average New Yorkers.  Just under the surface lays stories worth telling.  In the case of Bernie Goetz, we find an eccentric animal lover who has a history of breaking the law and seems somewhat hell-bent on continuing to do so.  What makes his story worth telling and reading is Bernie’s “personalization” of the squirrel issue. He has taken a pregnant squirrel into his home and hand feeds the four babies once they are born.  His disregard for the laws and rules of doing such a thing doesn’t bother him in the least. Bernie has gone way beyond the old guy tossing peanuts to squirrels in the park; he has made these squirrels an intricate part of his life.

Similarly, Sean Casey has made animals his life.  His story is worth being told because he is more than just an employee or volunteer at an animal rescue, he IS the rescue. Sean is  not only involved with every aspect of the shelter, he is the most important cog in the wheel of the shelter.  Sean was seemingly groomed for this line of work from an early age.  Without giving away too much personal history the author is able to paint a clear picture of what Sean is like in person with passages like, “he’s more comfortable around animals than people.”  This is much more than a story about an animal lover, this is a profile of an animal lover that has set out to do something about an issue that he personally sees as and feels to be an important one.  Sean saw there was a need and jumped in head first into the issue and is trying his hardest to make a positive difference in the lives of these forgotten animals.

In the This American Life piece entitled Fear of Sleep, most of Ira Glass’s story telling techniques are used.  What worked for me was the use of what Glass calls the 2 building blocks. The first is to have an anecdote – a series of actions or events.  In the story, we are given the location of the story (Brooklyn, NY), a description of the furniture that is out on the curb for trash, then invited up into one of the apartments where the reporter described the roaches as, “everywhere; sauntering down the walls and in the drawers.”  The actual movement from curb to inside helped add to the series of actions.  

Another element that worked well and made for a better story, I think, was the use of music that was added to the interview post production.  When the second lady was interviewed, this time bedbugs being the culprit, a very creepy soundtrack that evoked movement, restlessness was laid over parts of the interview when the woman was describing the bugs and how they feed.

The reporter in this piece used her natural voice, I think, and asked questions or made requests during the interview like, “show me some bugs; did it hurt; what can you do about them?”  The reporter asking these types of questions during the interview used Glass’s second building block of a good story – a moment of reflection, where any question that is raised is answered.  Some questions were answered right away by the woman being interviewed and some were answered by the reporter post production.

Here, a North American bumble bee is seen in it’s natural habitat.

Buzz buzz buzz, all freakin’ day, buzz buzz buzz

And now, a deep thought: Don’t you hate it when you think you see your friend Mark and yell out, “Hey Mark!” and the person turns around and it’s not Mark?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/06/magazine/look-east-river-flotsam.html

I chose the first photo of the essay, “the peculiar beauty of flotsam,” the rainbow of used lighters.  The first thing to come to my mind was our “throw-away culture,” especially (I would think) in New York City.  I think the vast majority of us recycle as much as we can, but this photo shows that not everything makes it to the recycling center or even to the dump.  The fact that all of these items in the essay were found in a single day is rather alarming.

Jens Mortensen, the photographer, uses a few of the techniques that we read about in “10 top photography composition rules;”  leading lines- the lighters are arranged by color and are lined up in 3 rows; the eye naturally and quickly scans through all 3 rows in order, top to bottom.  Symmetry & pattern – being mostly of the same brand and style, there is a pattern in the 3 rows of lighters, all the same but each an individual, of different color and various amounts of wear, tear and damage.  Background – all of the photos in this essay are shot on a bright white background. In the case of the lighters, the bright background helps make the colors vibrant and you can tell that some of the lighters are translucent.

This photo grabbed my attention because of the vibrant colors and, upon a closer look, each lighter was an individual.  Each one was purchased by someone, used to light various things (smokes, drugs, bbqs, pilot lights, etc), carried around like a wad of cash, then ultimately it runs out of gas and is tossed.  I thought about how the lighters were sorted and arranged by color which made me think of light coming through a prism, how it splits the “white light” (like the background) into the color spectrum (like the array of lighters).  I thought about the lighters being new and shiny and how a single, small flame could become a big flame and say, burn down an apartment building or how a cigarette butt could do the same…make something shiny and new into something burnt, dirty, damaged.  I thought about people, like us students, being “stamped out” like these lighters, at one point, fresh off the factory belt, only to be used and abused, scarred, burned…then thrown out when empty, replaced next semester.  I found it interesting that there was only one white lighter and only one black lighter and that there were so many more colors represented and thought about how people are “white” or “black” but we are really those lighters in between…brown, olive, tan, pale, red, dark, light…

Origin: Long Island, NY to Chester, NJ to Sarasota, FL to Charleston, SC (culinary school ’97) to Orlando, FL to Boston, MA.

Behavior: Beach bum in summer, flying stunt kites, bbq and soaking up the sun;  hibernate in the winter, playing ps3, braising short ribs and snuggling with Mamma the cat.

Characteristics: movie lover, story teller, traveler, beach comber, sun & warm weather lover, snow and cold hater, former chef but still a foodie, mad grill master.