Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: carpe media, isolation, Jordan peter hickey, robots, technology, tom waits, university of missouri columbia, wired together
Boy, we’ve been gone a long time. It’s good to see you again.
The following audio commentary was written and produced by Mr. Jordan Peter Hickey, MU-Jour ‘09 — a young man poised to make his splashing debut this fall in the New York magazine literature scene.
wired take five wired take five
(A more visually compelling presentation is forthcoming ~ thank you for your patience.)
Very sincerely,
C. M.
Filed under: PERSONAL
by Josh Barton
At 22, I’ve never had a boyfriend, or, for that matter, a relationship that lasted longer than the time it takes to throw away the condom and usher you out the door.
There have been boys I crushed on and ones I might have considered dating. But when I think back, only a select few have ever really had me “going through it.” (For anyone unfamiliar with that term, I’d suggest heavy doses of Keyshia Cole, Alicia Keys and of course, Ms. Faith Evans.)
Brandon was one of those boys. (more…)
Filed under: PERSONAL
by Karen Dorthea Scheel Jensen
I met my best friend Julie when we were both 14 years old. That was in 1998. We were skinnier and smaller than all the other girls at the school. So we stuck together. Our friendship, which lasted more than ten years, took no more than one boyfriend to destroy it.
AARHUS, DENMARK, 2006
It is afternoon. I’m meeting Julie for coffee. She has met someone. A guy from her university. We share girl talk. We have done this many times before. Who is he? Is he good-looking? Is he good in bed? Is she that into him? She seems happy. I feel happy for her. (more…)
Filed under: Uncategorized
The following text and photos are excerpted from an email from my old Milton buddy Sebastian Meyer, a photojournalist currently on assignment in Iraq. We’ll be posting his dispatches as we receive them. —EWS
(…and for gawshsakes, Seb, be careful!)
There have been quite a few requests over the past two weeks for stories and pictures from Kurdistan, so now that I’m back in Erbil—clean and with access to the Internet—here are a few select stories and impressions, along with a few photos. (NB: All the photos that I’m on commission for I can’t send, so unfortunately we’ll have to make do with these.)
As some of you know, my first week in Erbil was, well, a little disappointing. Ayub, our field producer, calls it the “Most Boring City in Iraq,” which I’m sure some of you are glad to hear. I wasn’t. (more…)
Filed under: SUSSMAN
by Emily Sussman
Gina, I discovered upon logging on to Facebook the other day, did not ask for your life story in status updates.
OUCH! I felt a sharp stinging sensation, as if my superego had just been sucker-punched.
Okay, so maybe Gina wasn’t addressing me specifically when she issued that statement for all 624 of her Facebook friends to see. Most likely, her venom was precipitated by some sort of psychosexual love triangle that had been manifesting itself in the form of its participants’ provocative little updates. (more…)
by Chad Painter

Lester Bangs, who proved that writing about rock can be just as exhilarating as playing it. (Photo: Stephanie Chernikowski)
CLEVELAND, April 4, 2009—“Le Freak” is blasting from the speakers as disco legends Chic step to the stage and are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
While Chic has no business being rock hall-of-famers, that’s a discussion for another day; the Cleveland institution has a long tradition of inducting non-rockers such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (rap), Miles Davis (jazz), Parliament-Funkadelic (funk), Bob Marley (reggae) and the Bee Gees (bad pop).
And while the RRHF has honored David Crosby, Eric Clapton and three-fourths of the Beatles multiple times, it has only opened its doors for music journalists twice: for former Billboard editor Paul Ackerman and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. (more…)
Filed under: GIAMMONA
by Craig Giammona
The storms pushing in off the Pacific have gained strength in recent days, wind and rain whipping us for hours at a time. Alaska Day has come and gone. The bald eagles have taken up their posts in the black poplar tree outside my apartment.
When the weather clears, usually for an hour or so, we glance up at the snow line, noting where it landed that day and its quick descent down the mountains toward town. It’s late October in southeast Alaska, and thoughts have turned to what we’re going to do when Sarah Palin becomes our governor again.
Filed under: SUSSMAN
Is there anything sadder than a neglected website? (One that hasn’t been updated in, say, two weeks?) Static pixels staring out from cyberspace are so maddeningly tight-lipped about the reasons for their (web)master’s abandonment!
Bear with us, dear reader; Carpe Media is going through a transition phase. In addition to working on a site redesign that will launch before the end of the month, I’ve been busy learning some of the techie skills needed to publish the kind of audio/visual storytelling mediums that prompted this site’s creation in the first place.
And while we’re on the subject of improvements, CM is actively recruiting new student contributors, a process that was given a tremendous boost by the faculty and staff who attended our presentation at the Reynolds Journalism Institute last week. (Thanks again to RJI Fellow Bill Densmore, who hosted and webcasted the event.)
Journalism that holds itself to the highest standards of accountability isn’t easy to find in the current online media maelstrom. Fortunately, today’s J-students are upping the ante by learning how to incorporate the core values of our profession with the rich new mediums made possible by the web. To that end, it’s the aim of this site to support them in their endeavors.
So if you’re a convergence, print, or photo-J student who’s tired of seeing the hard work you do for class fated to post-grading period obscurity, please consider letting CM publish your projects. Drop me a line at the address below to get the ball rolling, or if you’re just curious to find out more.
ews8tb@gmail.com
Filed under: PAINTER
by Chad Painter
Katie Couric isn’t known for her hard questions, and it seemed like she was throwing a softball to Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin when she asked at one point in the now-infamous CBS Evening News interview “…what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?”
Couric’s seemingly simple question, though, was tougher than it sounded: Palin could have given one of five possible answers.
Option 1: “I’m not going to answer that question, and here’s why…” (more…)






