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The Burning Bush

Big Love, Smallville, and Messianic Fiction

The spring of 2011 marks the finale of two television series that have been keeping me company for several years, each of which I feel a little misty at the thought of letting go of. Beware, traveler: herein lie spoilers for Big Love and Smallville.

The protagonists of the two programs hardly seem similar, at a passing glance. Big Love's Bill Henrickson is a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist, a family man, and an entrepreneur. Smallville's favorite son, Clark Kent, is a monogamist of undetermined Protestant stock, single, and searching for the right career.

  

But scratch the surface a little (with Kryptonite, if you must), and it's easy to see how the two characters have more than a passing resemblance to one another. Even beyond generalities one could draw regarding each program's implicit statements about the American Dream, for example, each continuity's set of thematic elements mirrors the other so well, in fact, you'd think the writing teams were each cribbing from the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index. (And heck, if one subscribes to the Campbellian monomyth theory, as does your humble host, the popular wisdom is that we're all cribbing from it, all the time, simply by being part of our own culture.)

The Secret Identity

Both Bill Henrickson and Clark Kent protect double lives, secret identities. The lies and deception that these two men, each of whom purports to rely on values such as honesty and forthrightness, are born of their iconoclastic and idiosyncratic natures. Bill is forced to hide his family life away from the American and mainstream Mormon publics that will castigate him for his lifestyle choices, while Clark must obfuscate not only his abilities, but his very species, in order to lead a normal life and to facilitate helping others.

Elastic Journalism

On Friday, the First Lady of Inkville and I checked out "Multimedia Journalism & the Landscape of News," a talk by The Daily's Gabriel Dance. It was sponsored by my old stomping grounds, the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication.

Dance was a popular act; we arrived a few minutes late, and found the room already at capacity and hotter than Hades. Good on him.

A lot of what Dance had to say really hit home, especially his strong recommendation that 21st century journalists need more than one skill set. And as I can attest both as a freelancer and as a former magazine staffer, it's hard out there for a pimp, assuming the pimp is a writer trying to support himself solely through freelance.

Dance's song-and-dance about multimedia was interesting, and he aptly demonstrated how the concept of "journalism" is elastic enough to encompass computer animators, designers, illustrators, and other creatives.

All Dance's examples stemmed from his time at The New York Times, and I'll admit I was hoping for a bit more about Dance's new gig at The Daily. But that job is new, so perhaps Dance deserves a pass for at least a few more weeks. And frankly, The Daily has thus far failed to impress me.

But what really left me scratching my head was the amount of culture shock Dance must be experiencing transferring from the Times, a supposed liberal bastion, to working for Rupert Murdoch. As I type this, Dance's personal website features a link to an article about a journalist's "battles" with Murdock, so perhaps The Daily really is enacting a separation of church and state for the purposes of doing business.

Call Me a Duck

My marketing job in the University of Oregon's Office of Admissions allows for a whole lot of creative leg-stretching. An indulgent and supportive boss, ditto.

Videotaping a ghost hunt in a cemetery? Go for it. Facebook-based essay contest? You betcha. Foursquare scavenger hunt? Sure, why not?

But nothing—and I mean nothing—has been so much fun (and so unexpected) as the writing, production, and creation of "Call Me a Duck."

Based on Maino's "All the Above," the video was launched last Friday, and as of this writing we're closing in on 160,000 views on YouTube... and still climbing.

Originally the brainchild of my boss Holly Moline Simons, "Call Me a Duck" was fast-tracked and produced on a shoestring budget once we learned that On the Rocks, the UO's resident male a cappella group, was going to appear on this fall's The Sing-Off on NBC.  (By the way, "fast-tracked" in academic parlance means just under half a year.)  Our boys were eliminated just shy of the final round, but hey, we'll take it!

Besides teaching me how to spell "a cappella," this project afforded me the chance to write and produce a rap song, which is a résumé line item I never would've considered. 

I was privileged to work with an amazing cast and crew.  Special shout-outs are due to Holly, as well as director Michael McDermott, director of photography John Waller, amazingly organized assistant director Christopher Parker, effervescent OTR liaison (and crystal-clear tenor) Jeffrey Rogers, audio engineer (and OTR founder) Peter Hollens, and the rock of UO Admissions, Jett Nilprabhassorn.

Funny side note: In a few weeks the UO plays Auburn in the BCS championship game.  I learned something interesting today.  Guess what l'il ditty Auburn has adopted this season as the football team's "pump up" song?

Maino's "All the Above." Complete coincidence, Tigers, scout's honor!

Photo courtesy of Michael McDermott.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

Last week Inkville took its show on the road to sunny San Diego, the city playing host to the 2010 American Marketing Assocation's Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

I took in some great (and not so great) presentations and talks.  Here are some highlights.

Alicia Nestle, assistant director for new media at Nazareth College, presented "20 Tips for Powerful Story-Driven Branding & Communications." Besides the fact that I am a professional storyteller, I also liked this presentation because its Letterman "Top 10 List" style  provided a lot of practical ideas one could implement immediately.

In what appears to be a possibly disturbing trend at this symposium both of the years I have attended, Nestle was joined in her presentation by a representative of the media firm that partnered with Nazareth. Many of the presentations involved one person from the academic side plus one corporate partner, in fact. If schools want to partner with outside third parties, sure, go for it. We do here at Oregon. But I'll admit it does give me pause in considering whether a presentation might be discounted by the AMA planners simply because the academic side presenter planned to fly solo.

Most of the conference sessions surrounding social and new media suggest to me that the University of Oregon is already at the forefront in this arena. We aren't doing everything we could, of course, but we're doing what we reasonably can, given that social media isn't at the tippy-top of any UO staffer's job description (to my knowledge, at least).

Gratifyingly, the location-based services presentation by Joe Hice of North Carolina State (who presented sans corporate partner) even used my UO Foursquare online materials as a demonstration of schools on the cutting edge of this particular medium. (By the way, NC State's social media plan is amazing, and include some cool ideas for QR codes, in particular.)

I was in awe of Purdue's "Makers, All" campaign as presented by Teri Thompson, that university's vice president for marketing. The campaign is simple and elegant, and offers return to a core branded identity while maximizing use of a mascot that might be confusing or awkward in the 21st century. But really, how could a presentation called "From Gatorade to Lady Gaga" fail to disappoint, especially when its presenter charges onto stage in a triumphant pop music opener?

Better Read than Dead: Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

Inkville's "mostly New Orleans, much of the time" coverage continues with this installment. And by the way, the images after the jump sort of stray into NSFW territory. And definitely stray into "Ewww" territory.

The book pitch I have been kicking around for a few years now centers on ghost stories of old New Orleans. So what better research item than, well, Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, Jeanne deLavigne's 1946 treatise on supernatural hauntings throughout the French Quarter and other NOLA neighborhoods?

The book is sadly out of print and going for around $125 online, so I'm indebted to the University of Oregon's interlibrary loan program, and to the libraries of the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University.

Here's a photo of deLavigne, which she has signed as a gift for another favorite New Orleans author, Robert Tallant. Seem slike a nice older lady, doesn't she? You'd never expect she was a macabre freak.

deLavigne was part of the early-to-mid-20th century New Orleans artistic and literary renaissance as fueled by the Works Progress Administration, a contemporary of Lyle Saxon and a sort of spiritual inheritor of George Washington Cable. I haven't read an awful lot about this period of NOLA history, but on the surface, some of the relationships, artistic output, and activist bent of the whole thing seem reminiscent of the Irish Literary Revival's Yeats/Synge/Lady Gregory complex across the pond, just a few decades later.  It's temptingly easy, in fact, to cast deLavigne as a sort of Southern Lady Gregory, gathering the spooky tales of the common American.

Semi-Fresh

You know how you can be so excited to finally see that movie you've been dying to see, only to be disappointed when it finally opens? Boy, I sure do. I had a similar experience last week at the Social Fresh social media marketing conference in Portland.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to enhance the professional Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter profiles I maintain for the Office of Admissions at the University of Oregon. But I should have known by the fact that orange is major branding color for this company, but an inauspicious hue for Oregon Ducks. For a conference that seems to be billing itself as the nuevo-hip marketing opportunity for bright young things, what with all the pimp hats and zippy fruit-related graphics gracing their materials, the conference was a little short on innovative content. Much of it felt rather de rigeur: the ol' "line-up-behind-the-mic-to-ask-a-question-of-our-panelists" bit.

There were some bright points. I almost skipped the talk by Bryan Rhoads of Intel, and I'm glad I didn't. He had some interesting things to say about his company's adoption of social media, and even made time for a quick Second Life jab. Carri Bugbee revealed she is the tweeter behind the semi-official Twitter account of Mad Men's Peggy Olson, and her panel provided some good ROI pointers for Facebook and Twitter. As an Evernote geek I was glad to see Andrew Sinkov on a branding panel, the same one in which Matt Singley couldn't help but entertain by somehow repeatedly circling back to sex and alkyhol... and somehow tying it all together to make a less-than-lascivious point.

So, that's the good. As for the not-so-good... The talk by one breakout speaker consisted of a single Google Analytics tip, padded by some shilling for his shingle. The afternoon keynote speaker was spastic enough that I felt like I was watching a sitcom. And my attempt at doing the ol' question-at-the-mic thing resulted in a couple of rather smarmy marketers sliding up to me, while the presentation was still happening, leaning across a colleague to make a stage-whispered sales pitch.

Said colleague, the amazing Debbie Williamson-Smith, agreed that SoFresh was worth the two-hour jaunt from Eugene, but perhaps wouldn't have been worth an overnight hotel stay or a flight. Debbie did indulge me with a quick side trip to Captain Henry's Pirate Store in the Lloyd Center Mall, so, you know, arrrgh, matey.

While I was being rung up for the jolly roger sticker that now graces my laptop, the college-aged pirate co-ed behind the sales counter took care to compare my credit card's photo to my actual mug, leading me to remark on the irony of thoughtful security in a pirate-themed store. She had a response at the ready, that it was all about professional obligation, quality assurance in the pirate world.

Now that's branding, me hearties.

The Prophet

This month was Lane County's annual Project Homeless Connect, described on the program's website as "a one-day, 'one-stop shop' event serving people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless." Back in 2007 I interviewed a couple of the project's clients for articles for my graduate program. That work was never published, so below I am polishing off an oldie but (I think) a goodie. Enjoy.

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Though I offer to keep it under wraps, Paul Lehman wants his full name used for this article. Paul is a poet and author, and the extra publicity can’t hurt. Paul is also a guru. Consumer-driven culture holds no appeal for Paul, so he has elected to engage in a self-imposed exile from mainstream society, to shoulder a life of contemplation, and the lifestyle of a beggar.

At the moment, Paul’s immediate concerns are more earthly in nature. His bodily vessel is hungry, so Paul has made the trek from the mobile home park, his current base of operations, to nourish it. Yes, Paul is a guru, and he dresses the part. A maroon cap bears a Tibetan-looking pattern, crowning a gaunt visage of deep, watery gray eyes and a cascading white beard. At lunchtime Paul holds court, breathlessly reciting one of his own works to a couple of volunteers, a poem about personal growth, and the beauty of truth, and a higher power, surprisingly wrapped in an almost-iambic pentameter.

Neither a free meal nor the role of supplicant are new to Paul, but then he has played many roles in his six or seven decades on this plane… choirboy, soldier, high school teacher. Once he even helped build a boardwalk over a Florida mangrove swamp. Society is a curtain across truth, says Paul, a fog obscuring our knowledge of the power of the self. “That’s why I hang out outside the system,” he grins conspiratorially.

Paul’s self-appointed job is to free the masses from “the shadows of their own poor understanding.” He is Gandalf, Merlin, Teiresias, sprung from the storybook page to sound a word of warning in these dark times.

Historically, mankind feeds and clothes its prophets out of reverence, or awe, or fear. But eventually the wise men almost always combust, set afire by the glare of the social order they serve through its subversion. But Paul does not apologize, and has adopted his own credo, codified in the words of one of his poems:

'Twas then I set aside my reason, / In favor of the moment, / And began to live / in every season / Without need of atonement.

Shutter Island: The Epiphanies of Confinement

In my recent video interview for the University of Oregon's Talk project, I was asked to name one thing I fear. I replied, "an enclosed space." I've always been somewhat claustrophobic. Recently the First Lady of Inkville and I were walking in the woods here in western Oregon, and we came upon a damp playground situated in a quiet campground. I remarked that the cement tubes painted in bright pastels, placed near the swings for children to crawl through, had always given me the creeps as a kid.

Back in the city, we watched a trio of films that, coincidentally, each address notions of confinement, claustrophobia, and the epiphanies that arise from confronting oneself in a closed system. Be forewarned, for herein lie mild spoilers for Shutter Island, Coraline, and, yes, believe it or not, Couples Retreat.

Scorsese's noir Shutter Island is a lush, beautiful film. It's not the visual confection of Coraline or Amelie, but the saturated color, beautiful stars, and unforgiving, verdant landscape are visually compelling. And while Shutter Island is, indeed, frightening, it's not the slasher thriller the trailer makes it out to be; its heart-in-the-throat thrills derive as much from the plot's implications for its protagonist's life and lifestyle, as from any shadowy boogeymen.

The film opens on a Boston harbor ferryboat in 1954, with a pair of U.S. marshals, a surprisingly likable Leo DiCaprio and the reliably wry Mark Ruffalo, assigned to investigate the disappearance of a violent escapee from an island mental institution. What they uncover, of course, is not so straightforward.

With its forbidden zones, violent secrets, abandoned facilities, and requisitely spooky graveyard, the closed system of the Shutter Island prison is as much a stand-in for the human mind as it is an actual filmic environment. This is a "locked room" mystery adventure writ large, and it's only through the DiCaprio character's' submersion into his own psyche that said mystery can be solved. Along the way, the protagonist must abandon his detective smarts, and ultimately, his very identity, to emote his way through a maze where logic fails. Eventually he must face the reality of what Shutter Island represents for him personally, and, related, what sort of man he has become. It is only through the confinement, the enclosure, of the island that DiCaprio's character is able to grow.

The Märchen Rap

Remember my post about the Three Little Pigs?  One played pipes, the others danced jigs?  Let's call that my excuse, shall we?  This was composed to amuse Camilla Mortensen. With apologies in advance to Guntis Šmidchens and Daniel Wojcik.  Okay, hold onto your copies of Aarne-Thompson.  A-one and a-two...

Tale-type indexin' like a mad, mad fiend,
Perrault's actin' Grimm and Richard Burton plays mean.
Students only know that whack Disney crap,
But this is my slant-rhymed Märchen rap.

Um.  Yeah.  It's a folklorist thing, you wouldn't understand.  Honestly, I'm not sure I do, either...

In other news, this l'il ditty has the dubious distinction of being the first Facebook comment to graduate to Inkville blog entry status, Joseph Campbell help us.

Out and About

Just a random collection of recent links to my work, both creative and professional.

Paper Fort, the blog of Oregon Literary Arts (which may have the greatest photo logo ever, as seen at left), published a li'l post about my ghost-hunting work. I guess winning this award means I need to get motivated, and expand this project, toot sweet. It was fun to be the interviewee rather than the interviewer for once, but I must admit I now have a better understanding of why my interview subjects obsess over their responses. The interview was conducted via e-mail, so I had loooots of time to unhealthily agonize.

I had a similar realization when the Oregon Daily Emerald, the UO"s independent student newspaper, published "Admissions office taps into Facebook." The article explores my department's use of social networking to recruit students, and quotes me extensively. Also mis-quotes me just a wee bit; I seem to remember my actual statements, as delivered over the phone, being just a skoch less self-serving. The Facebook profile in question, by the way, is located at http://facebook.com/UOAdmissions.

Finally, dotEduGuru, a sort of trade press site for higher ed marketing types, posted the online article "Best Admissions" Uses of Twitter," giving the nod to the tweet stream I maintain for the UO Office of Admissions, located at http://twitter.com/BeAnOregonDuck, as one of its "best." The article provides some tips for effective tweeting for recruitment. I'd mentioned this article in passing in a previous post, but frankly I wanted to make a little more hay of it.