Whoops

Neglected the journalism blog again because I remembered I also like writing about fiction and music and cats and stuff.

If you're interested in reading any of that in no particular order, you can check out my Tumblr: cnell.tumblr.com.

The Making of "Snow Fall"

I finally got around to reading The New York Times's multimedia feature "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek", which has been attracting a lot of attention from web-savvy reporters.

Basically, it's a long, in-depth article about a deadly avalanche in the Cascades near Seattle, illustrated by videos, photographs, audio clips, slideshows and animations that come to life as you scroll down the page.

I really like the format. It combines classic long-form writing with the smooth interactive experience that people now expect from online media, and the graphics and videos make it easier to concentrate on the story and keep track of all the details.

In a team interview with Source, NYT's graphics director Steve Duenes explains: "We wanted to make a single story out of all the assets, including the text. So the larger project wasn’t a typical design effort. It was an editing project that required us to weave things together so that text, video, photography and graphics could all be consumed in a way that was similar to reading—a different kind of reading."

If this is where print journalism is headed, then I'm encouraged - but it's looking more and more likely that I'll need to dust off my computer science degree if I want my career to go anywhere. And here I thought I'd escaped.

Orwell on Book Reviewers

One of my indulgences over Christmas was a little collection of George Orwell essays, one of those "Great Ideas" books from Penguin. I'd only read 1984 and Animal Farm before this, and I'd like to read his journalism and nonfiction - particularly now that his work isn't being crammed down my throat by high school English teachers.

I enjoyed (kinda) his essay "Confessions of a Book Reviewer," in which he describes such professionals as sad, frumpy little men surrounded by dusty papers and half-empty cups of tea.

"[T]he prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash ... but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever. The reviewer, jaded though he may be, is professionally interested in books, and out of the thousands that appear annually, there are probably fifty or a hundred that he would enjoy writing about. If he is a top-notcher in his profession he may get hold of ten or twenty of them: more probably he gets hold of two or three. The rest of his work however conscientious he may be in praising or damning, is in essence humbug. He is pouring his immortal spirit down the drain, half a pint at a time."

Man, Orwell must have been a hoot at parties.

Review: Steve Jobs

Originally published in The Dominion Post's "Your Weekend", 26 November 2011.

Since the death of Steve Jobs on October 5, the stories surrounding him have taken on a life of their own, linking Jobs with everything from the glories of American capitalism to the rebellious spirit of the Arab Spring. Fortunately, biographer Walter Isaacson has the skill and insight to tell the story of an extraordinary person on a human scale.

Drawn from over 40 exclusive interviews with Jobs over two years, along with interviews with his family, friends, colleagues and competitors, Steve Jobs: A Biography pays tribute to a modern genius while avoiding the notorious “reality distortion field” that surrounded him throughout his life.

Open and reflective during his struggle with cancer, Jobs gave Isaacson his full co-operation and urged people to be honest about his mistakes.

The book starts with his childhood in the San Francisco Bay area and follows his career from beginning to end. At each step – co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in his father’s garage, revolutionising personal computers with the Macintosh, creating animated movies at Pixar or tackling the music market with iTunes – Jobs strived to combine cutting-edge technology with art and imagination.

Guess who got her first byline?

It's pretty neat, I gotta say.

Oh, and the movie's awesome. More on that later.

From the "Oh Geez, I Actually Wrote That" File

May as well be up front about it, really.

When I was in college, I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I mean like "watched Fellowship of the Ring twelve times at the cinema" obsessed. Embarrassing to admit, but I was studying computer science at the time and the LOTR films came out right in the middle of Finals Week and I NEEDED ESCAPISM OKAY.

So I was idly reminiscing about it today and I remembered this:

The Story of Legolas and Enoreth

That right there is a complete, novel-length LOTR fanfiction story about Legolas Greenleaf, written by me. And a satire, no less. Fanfic about fanfic, how meta.

I'm blushing just looking at it, but you know, the story has its moments. The bit with the talking raccoon still makes me laugh. Poor Legolas, the Mary Sues will be the death of you.

I once wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanfiction too, but damned if I'm going to show you where that is.