Archive for January, 2009
More on Updike, from Chip Kidd
Novel by Updike, cover by Kidd
The past couple of days have brought the expected slew of John Updike tributes, including one from our Alumni Association colleague Alan Janesch. Today, the Web magazine Slate offers a few more, one of which is penned by Penn State alumus Chip Kidd ’86. Kidd, the celebrated book-jacket designer, writes about his experiences working with the late author (and fellow native son of Shillington, Pa.) on a number of projects. It’s pretty cool insight — one great artist on another.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Add comment January 30, 2009
Did I Mention I Got a New Camera?
I love having a point-and-shoot camera, one that is in my ski-jacket pocket at all times. Here’s how the alumni center looked to me when I arrived for work this morning. Click on it to see it bigger.
Tina Hay, editor
Add comment January 30, 2009
It *Is* Casual Friday, Right?
With Super Bowl Sunday just two days away, several staff throughout the Alumni Association showed up today in black-and-gold attire, including the magazine’s staff assistant, Barb Marshall, shown here. She also owns a Troy Polamalu jersey (No. 43), but informs us that the jersey is worn “only on game day.”
Tina Hay, editor
Add comment January 30, 2009
Fun with the Women’s Volleyball Team
Arielle Wilson (left) and Blair Brown
I thought you’d enjoy seeing a few photos from a shoot we did yesterday involving the Penn State women’s volleyball team, who recently won their second straight national title. The photo shoot was great fun—the players loved it and we loved it—and the results will appear in our March-April issue.
The idea goes back to December, when the Penn State women had just won the national championship and we were talking about how we should cover them in the magazine. This is a team that had gone through the season undefeated and some people were calling them the best women’s volleyball team in the history of the sport. We felt we ought to do something, but not an ordinary season wrap-up. For one thing, any story we did would appear a full three months after the national championship game.
Lisa Bell, the makeup artist
Somehow, I don’t remember how, we got the idea to do a photo-driven story. We hired Bill Cramer ’85 as the photographer—he’s done a lot of great work for Philadelphia Magazine, and for us too—and asked him to do almost a Vanity Fair-type glamor shoot, one that also captures some of the team’s playfulness and spirit. Bill came up from Philly yesterday, along with two assistants and a makeup artist (a first for us!); the players showed up in their dressy clothes; and Bill spent about three hours shooting them against a white backdrop on the main gym floor at Rec Hall.
We’re still not sure exactly what the story will be called, how it will look, or what the copy will say. But I know we got some great photos yesterday.
Oh, and one player couldn’t be there for the shoot—Christa Harmotto is student-teaching in England—so we hired a photographer in England to shoot her against a very similar backdrop, and we’ll somehow stitch her in. (We’ll include a note to this effect in the magazine, I’m sure; we have no interest in deceiving anyone.)
Below is a one-minute video clip I shot of Bill choreographing just one of the shots; the players in it are Kelsey Ream (in the blue shirt) and All-Americans Megan Hodge (red shirt) and Nicole Fawcett. Fawcett was the national player of the year.
Tina Hay, editor
5 comments January 29, 2009
Maybe You Should Look for a Different Bench
I was up at Rec Hall yesterday afternoon, watching a photo shoot involving the national champion women’s volleyball team for our March-April issue. (More about that later.) On the way up there I saw this snow-covered bench along Burrowes Road outside Deike Building that gave me a chuckle. We had just a little bit of snow, sleet, and slush yesterday!
If I were waiting for the CATA bus at this spot, no matter how tired I was, no matter how much I was dying to sit down … I think I’d stand.
(Click on the photo to see a bigger version in a new window—except, why would you want to?)
Tina Hay, editor
1 comment January 29, 2009
The 411 on Penn State York
Our editor, Tina Hay, stumbled across this blog yesterday: As its name pretty well states, the Penn State York Admissions Blog features students and admissions counselors writing about daily life on campus. The entries are a mix of personality and insight on course loads, student activities, dorm life, and what it’s like to make the adjustment from high school to college. With each of Penn State’s campuses now offering four year degrees (and with application numbers up throughout the Penn State system), blogs like this should find a growing audience.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Add comment January 28, 2009
Phreaked Out
Dan Morrell, a former senior editor at The Penn Stater who now freelances out of Boston, has a great story in the latest issue of Boston magazine. He delves into the “phreaker” underground, including some folks so skilled with a phone that they can create all sorts of mayhem—like breaking into FEMA’s voicemail or calling in a SWAT team against a stranger in another state. The story is called “Disconnected,” and it’s gripping.
—Chas Brua, contributing editor
Add comment January 28, 2009
John Updike at Rest
A page from Updike's "Buchanan Dying" manuscript, housed in Pattee Library (click to see larger)
I used to joke that John Updike wrote his novels and many other works faster than I could read them. Now, sadly, with his death yesterday, I have a chance of reading them all, since there will be no more. But I wish there would be.
Updike has been one of my all-time favorite writers since the early 1970s, when I read Rabbit Redux as an exchange student in Germany. Though the novel deals with many serious and troubling issues, for me it was for a kind of refuge from my struggles with my studies (all in German) and a link back to my home state of Pennsylvania. (Updike and I are from neighboring counties, me from Lehigh, him from Berks.)
As a grad student at Penn State I worked with the original manuscripts of Updike’s play, Buchanan Dying, in Penn State’s special collections library. Updike was kind enough to respond to a letter I wrote him about the play, and a few years ago, I met him and we chatted a bit. He was affable, approachable, courtly, self-effacing—and a bit elusive. I was lucky to meet him.
Alan Janesch is director of the Alumni Association’s Grassroots Network and an occasional contributor to this blog. You can read the New York Times story about Updike’s death here.
3 comments January 28, 2009
15 Minutes of Fame for a Poe Expert
Penn State prof Richard Kopley gets a nice mention in the January issue of U.S. News & World Report, in a story about Edgar Allen Poe. The 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth was just last week—the mystery novelist was born Jan. 19, 1809. Kopley, who teaches English at Penn State DuBois, is a Poe scholar and has a new scholarly book out called Edgar Allen Poe and the Dupin Mysteries, focusing on three of Poe’s stories: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” and “The Purloined Letter.”
Tina Hay, editor
1 comment January 27, 2009
Drama in Pinstripes
I’m not much of a baseball guy, so I tend not to follow the sport when it’s actually in season; news of the game’s offseason activities usually misses me completely.
But I couldn’t help noticing the buzz around Joe Torre’s new book detailing his time managing the New York Yankees. Baseball folks are talking about Torre’s behind-the-scenes accounting of those Yankee teams, particularly the dirt spilled about superstar third-baseman (and, allegedly, Madonna’s boyfriend) Alex Rodriguez. The New York Times’ coverage of the book makes it all sound pretty spicy:
Whether hitting 450-foot home runs or sunbathing shirtless in Central Park or squiring strippers, Rodriguez was like nothing ever seen before on the championship teams of the Torre Era: an ambitious superstar impressed and motivated by stature and status, particularly when those qualities pertained to himself.
Why do I mention it here? Because the book, The Yankee Years, is co-authored by Tom Verducci ’82, the longtime Sports Illustrated scribe who is arguably the most prominent baseball writer in the country. And if you’re the sort of baseball fan who likes to read while you drive, good news: Verducci (who also co-wrote Torre’s 1998 autobiography) also narrates the audio version.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
1 comment January 26, 2009
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