HPA and GSMS Grade Eight LA
Letter From The Editor Exemplars
“A letter from the editor is a letter written by an editor of a given publication to its readers. This is mostly associated with newspaper and magazine publications. The editor addresses the major topics and stories found in the publication, giving a clue to its readers on what they should expect to read.”
Editor’s Letter from Terry McDonell: Sport in America
Last week SI announced the Sport in America: Our Defining Stories HBO documentary series that we are producing with Endgame Entertainment and Playground Entertainment. This week In My Tribe explains the themes of the series and encourages readers to contribute their own stories (at sportinamerica.com).
To begin reporting the piece I asked colleagues 16 questions, starting with: What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever seen in sports? I agreed with senior writer Joe Posnanski that it was Jackie Robinson’s debut and rookie year. Everything else follows that. And even then, Robinson still doesn’t get enough credit for his courage. Neither do Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson and Bill Russell and Jim Brown. I also agreed with copy chief Gabe Miller, who pointed to the spirit and endurance of the Thrilla in Manila, and what it did not only to the loser, Joe Frazier, but also to the winner, Muhammad Ali. So it is with so much about Ali: His decision to apply for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam war cost him a fortune and reminds us what courage and conviction are. Courage is also at the heart of comebacks like the Giants’ rallying to beat the Patriots in the 2008 Super Bowl and the Red Sox’ coming back from a 3–0 series deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.
SI staffers answered my questions with story after story (many sadly cut for space), like the one about Central Washington University softball players who carried an injured opponent around the bases in 2008 so her home run would stick. That’s how rich we are in stories.
And they are all layered with meaning: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal playing that five-set final at Wimbledon in 2008, four hours and 48 minutes of Federer’s power, grace and creativity versus Nadal’s athleticism, speed and grit—all with mutual respect. It is the rivalry that assistant managing editor Christopher Hunt says has “the least animosity in all of sport.” And another moment in tennis: The 1982 French Open semifinals, in which Mats Wilander had match point on José-Luis Clerc, and Clerc hit a shot that was called out, giving Wilander the match and a berth in his first Grand Slam final. But Wilander, only 17 years old, thought Clerc’s shot was good and insisted on replaying the point. Wilander won the next point and went on to win the tournament. What would Serena have done?
My point is, you can know that Alex Rodriguez and Pete Rose are liars and still love their play. But that is not what Sport in America is about. I hope you’ll read In My Tribe with your own stories in mind. That’s how it came together, with stories from colleagues: Kelli Anderson, Lars Anderson, Stephanie Apstein, Chris Ballard, Michael Bamberger, Jen Chang, Bobby Clay, Neil Cohen, Richard Deitsch, Richard Demak, Zac Ellis, Michael Farber, Paul Fichtenbaum, Steve Fine, Dick Friedman, Jim Gorant, Bryan A. Graham, Hank Hersch, Christopher Hunt, Lee Jenkins, Nicki Jhabvala, Kostya P. Kennedy, Ted Keith, Thomas Lake, Tim Layden, Jeffrey Lewis, Tom Mantzouranis, Bette Marston, Gabe Miller, Richard O’Brien, Andrew Perloff, Joe Posnanski, S.L. Price, John Rolfe, Melissa Segura, Gary Smith, Christian Stone, Ian Thomsen, Tom Verducci, Grant Wahl, L. Jon Wertheim and Alexander Wolff.
The Editor's Letter From The November 2013 Issue Of Popular Science Magazine
The world belongs to engineers.
I mean no offense to designers. As a journalist, I covered design for several years and developed a high opinion of it. If nothing else, design humanizes research and technology. But for a fundamental task—a suit that will keep astronauts’ blood from boiling in space, a bridge across an impossible chasm—call an engineer.
As any engineer can tell you, though, the profession isn’t known for social graces. And yet engineers now make mobile devices, software, and video compression—they’re building social experiences. And when you let an engineer throw the party, sometimes it can be a little awkward.
I spent the last few months testing a new category of social engineering: remote-presence devices. These are mechanical avatars through which I can haunt Popular Science’s New York office from my home in Oakland, holding meetings, popping in on the staff, and generally freaking everyone out.
But it turns out face-to-face conversation can’t just be engineered. In 1994, Eric Paulos, a UC Berkeley electrical engineer and computer scientist, built the first remote-presence device: a blimp that allowed an operator to see and speak through it. This predated breakthroughs like Wi-Fi, tiny monitors, and reliable actuators as well as Gmail, Skype, and other basics of connected society. And while Paulos managed to create a device, he quickly ran into the problems associated with engineering human interactions.
“It was a big transition point for me,” says Paulos, now director of the Living Environments Lab. He had to make the leap from his fundamental training in amperage and wiring (how stuff is made) to an abstract interest in human interactions (how stuff is used). “I went from doing robotics—an engineering path—to social cues. I started thinking about gaze length, trust, really subtle stuff.”
Tom Foster explores another awkward intersection between engineering and human experience: the creation of artificial meat. As the planet outgrows its natural meat supply, engineered meat could act as a substitute. But whether grown in a lab or made of vegetables, the stuff is just plain gross to most of us. That revulsion—Tom calls it the uncanny valley of food—is a culinary version of the same reaction several of my colleagues had to my robot self. The engineers, once again, have a big job to do.
When Adam Rapoport Makes Chicken Pot Pie, He Cheats
The first thing I do when I arrive at the office every Monday morning is ask my assistant, Amiel, what he got up to over the weekend.
Amiel is 25, worked in a bar before taking this gig, and now lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with four roommates. Except Amiel never tells me about what bands he saw or clubs he went to; instead, he tells me what he cooked. There was the time he went to a butcher and bought some lamb heads so he could make tacos—which is not to be confused with the time he picked up some fish heads in Chinatown for a fish-cheek pasta sauce.
I can relate to Amiel; I just can’t cook like he does. I’m 44, not 25. I’ve got a wife, a kid, a taxing job. You know the drill—the same demands we all deal with.
But this doesn’t mean my wife and I don’t find a way to sit down to a proper dinner. We just take a few liberties.
For my wife Simone’s birthday in November, rather than go out, I cooked for her and a couple of friends. It was a Tuesday night; there would be no run to Chinatown or a butcher in Queens. There would just be the best damn chicken pot pie they had ever tasted.
After work, I grabbed a rotisserie chicken from the market across from our apartment, along with a bag of frozen peas and pearl onions, a bundle of carrots, and a package of Dufour frozen puff pastry. I snipped some thyme and flat-leaf parsley from our garden and got to work.
So, no, it wasn’t exactly “from scratch.” But just like we do in the magazine every month, I focused on flavor and technique. I made a silky béchamel that I enriched with chicken stock that I had in the freezer. Then I added the chicken (which I’d shredded), the peas and onions, some carrots, and the herbs. Oh, and some hot sauce and Worcestershire, because that stuff tastes really good.
On went the cap of pastry dough, into the oven went the casserole, out came the chilled Champagne. An hour later, we were sitting down at a table scattered with flickering votives. The pot pie was puffed and golden, the creamy sauce bubbling over the sides.
There was a big green salad tossed with shallot vinaigrette, as well as three very happy, very sated young ladies. Did I cheat? Sure. But Simone and her friends didn’t mind. And no disrespect to Amiel, but I’m pretty sure the pot pie went over far better than lamb-head tacos would have.
A Call To Focus on the Music — For Music's Sake
As we head into the home stretch of what is sure to be another very strong broadcast for the Grammy Awards, I find myself dwelling on one of music’s last big televised shows, the American Music Awards. A strange pairing, perhaps, but bear with me a minute here.
I was on standby the night of the AMAs. A handful of morning news and entertainment shows let me know that they might tape segments with me discussing the show, depending on how it went.
And this is how it went: There were many really strong performances. Jennifer Lopez amazed with a tribute to Celia Cruz. Rihanna, now an elder stateswoman after seven albums, was presented with an icon award -- just 25, she recently tied Michael Jackson with her 13th No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, trailing only Mariah Carey and the Beatles on Billboard’s all-time list. Justin Timberlake proved he was as adept with a guitar as he is with his dance moves.
But to me, the story of the night was the new artists. Ariana Grande made a strong claim to being the young, vocal power to watch with a stripped-down performance of “Tattooed Heart.” Another newcomer, Imagine Dragons, riveted the theater with bombast and giant drums on a medley of their hits “Demons” and “Radioactive.” Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were piped in live from Miami and not only delivered an excellent set but used an acceptance speech to talk about the sort of racial profiling that led to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. And as always, Florida Georgia Line showed it knows how to bring the party -- this time with Nelly.
The strength of the show was validated by a 32% ratings hike from the previous year, including 82% among teen viewers, according to Nielsen.
That was a story I was excited to share with TV audiences the next morning! There is a new generation of artists that has emerged in the past year or so, and they are electrifying a precious new generation of music fans. The lifeblood of this industry is the musicians and performers who emerge to put their stamps on old forms, or sometimes completely flip the script. Think about how less dynamic music would seem today without this year’s Grammy nominees for best new artist: Kendrick Lamar, James Blake, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kacey Musgraves and Ed Sheeran. It’s a category so strong that Billboard chart-topper Lorde, along with the aforementioned Grande, Imagine Dragons and Florida Georgia Line, were left to win Grammys in other categories or future years.
What could be a better story than that?
And yet, that night at the (highly entertaining) Scooter Braun/Republic Records after-party, I bumped into a producer for one of the shows that was contemplating coverage. And our conversation basically amounted to: “It was boring because nothing controversial happened.” He expected to shrink coverage of the AMAs. Before I went to sleep that night, I was told that none of the shows planning longer segments would be doing them.
It’s a sign of the times that celebrity trumps actual culture on TV. If Miley Cyrus cavorts with a foam finger, I’m a talking head on the topic for the next three months. If she does a superb job singing a great song like “Wrecking Ball,” producers start looking for B-roll of the Kardashians.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. But that doesn’t mean we must endure it in silence.
I refuse to accept that these new artists -- and credible, talented artists in general -- aren’t interesting to a large audience. Their songs have been downloaded and streamed billions of times. They have created the soundtrack to weddings and funerals, breakups and triumphs, falling in love and dancing with your children in the kitchen.
If you work in TV or know someone who does, I hope you’ll mention this to them. The almighty platform of TV isn’t created by some monolithic Borg, even if it seems that way at times. It’s created by a series of programming executives and producers who are people just like you and me. People who maybe need a reminder of the gift and the power they have -- that we all have -- to make the world a better, smarter, less cynical place within our own sphere of influence. There are plenty of TV viewers who want substance -- if not to dominate, then at least to offer the occasional counterpoint to sometimes saccharine, occasionally vicious coverage of stars. So, my media brethren and sistren, bloggers and tweeters and network TV producers alike: As we plan our Grammy coverage, can we pause just a moment and remember that these people we’ll all be watching are artists? Maybe, just maybe, we should focus on their art.