Archive for July, 2009
Velvet Brown’s Euphonic Inspiration
Alumni Association members should’ve seen our profile of Velvet Brown, the University’s world-renowned tuba player and instructor, in the magazine’s July/August issue. In a nice coincidence, the Sunbury (Penn.) Daily Item yesterday ran a profile of Penn State undergrad and award-winning euphonium player Gretchen Renshaw. Her biggest inspiration? Let’s just say we weren’t surprised.
[Renshaw] credits Velvet Brown, professor of tuba and euphonium at Penn State, as being her most influential teacher. “She has really pushed me a lot. From where I started she’s kept pushing me farther and farther so that I can reach as much of my potential as possible in these four years. She is constantly making sure that I’m not satisfied with were I am right now.” To reach that next level, she tries to put in four to five hours a day practicing on euphonium and tuba.
And if, like me, you weren’t quite clear on what exactly a euphonium is, here you go.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Kareem McKenzie’s Hard Lesson
In eight seasons with the New York Giants, Kareem McKenzie ’01 Bus has built a reputation as one of the NFL’s stand-up citizens on and off the field. The lone blemish on his record came last November, when the former Nittany Lion was pulled over in New Jersey and charged with a DUI. Today’s New York Times features a terrific column on how McKenzie has dealt with the incident, and on the broader issue of public perception of NFL players. The arrest came nearly a year ago, but the timing of the column isn’t random: Michael Vick was just reinstated by the NFL, and McKenzie’s teammate Plaxico Burress is testifying this week on a weapons charge. Given the league’s popularity, it’s a hugely relevant topic.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Watch for Typos—Our Copy Editor is Leaving
Chas Brua, our copy editor for the past 12 years. Photo by Bill Cardoni.
If you notice more typos than usual in our September-October issue—which of course I’m hoping you don’t—it’s all Chas’ fault.
Chas Brua ’86, ’02g, ’09g, our ace copy editor and fact checker for more than 12 years, is leaving us. Today is his last day. And, while he has already edited about a third of the Sept-Oct issue, we still have a lot of pages left to finish, and we’re on our own for those.
If you’re wondering what a copy editor does, basically, well, he proofs every freaking word that appears in the magazine.
—For every single class note and every single obituary, for example, he verifies every single detail: year of graduation, student activities, address, etc.
—He reads every piece of editorial copy, from the 30-word captions to the 3,000-word features, and he usually reads them a half-dozen times at least: when they first come in from the writer, when they’ve been laid out by the art director, when the pages come back from the prepress vendor, and so on. In the early stages he gives us his take on whether the story “works” or not, where it gets bogged down or confusing, why the ending doesn’t feel right. In later stages he’s looking more carefully at the minutiae: what should get italicized, which spelling of “theatre” we should use, whether the phrase “abusive marriage” might constitute libel.
—He proofs the ads—both the paid ads and the house ads.
I can’t tell you how many times he’s caught misspellings, typos, sentences that made no sense, and other errors that could have gotten us in trouble.
Chas (his first name rhymes with “jazz”) came to us in December 1996, not long after I started as editor. He had been working at the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat when we hired him as our copy editor. (I remember that when he told us in the job interview that he found himself wanting to copy-edit restaurant menus and road signs, we knew he was the guy for us.)
For a while he continued to work at the Tribune-Democrat, so he’d commute back and forth from State College to Johnstown daily and still put in hours at the magazine.
Later, when we had an opening for a full-time associate editor, we hired Chas for that position. He was in charge of a couple of sections of the magazine, wrote several features, and continued to be our fact checker and copy editor. Later still, he decided to go to grad school at Penn State, so he went back to part-time status at the magazine. He got his master’s in teaching English as a second language in 2002 and successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation in applied linguistics in May of this year.
He is known on staff by many nicknames: Dr. Chas, Chasworth, and Copywallah, among others.
Starting Monday, he’ll be doing a postdoctoral gig over in the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, basically doing stuff to help Penn State faculty and grad students be better instructors. We’re all excited for him to pursue his new career, but we do not look forward to replacing him.
Tina Hay, editor
Steve McCurry, Blogger
I just learned that our favorite photographer, Steve McCurry ’74, has a blog. Looks like he’s been doing it since May. He talks about the stories behind some of his photos, explains his thought process, and offers advice to budding photographers. On the latter subject, he says, “When people ask me how they can become a photographer, I almost never mention cameras, lenses, or technique. I say, ‘If you want to be a photographer, first leave home.’” He goes on to explain the importance of exposing yourself to new places and experiences.
Among other things, I learned from reading his blog that some of his images were projected at the Staples Center during Michael Jackson’s memorial service. Pretty cool.
Tina Hay, editor
Romance and Asperger’s Syndrome
The other day I saw an interview with Hugh Dancy, who portrays a man with Asperger’s Syndrome in the new movie Adam. His character is one of the romantic leads (and the title character) in the film. In the interview, Dancy talks briefly about the research he did to better understand people with Asperger’s and the challenges they face in navigating social relationships.
I have no idea how accurate Dancy’s portrayal will be, but for a true insider’s viewpoint on life with Asperger’s, check out Laura Wexler’s powerful story “Alien No More,” which spotlights the struggles and triumphs of Penn State student Scott Robertson.
Clicking on this link will download a PDF of the article, which originally ran in our May/June issue.
Chas Brua, contributing editor
PJ Maierhofer: Blue Sapphire, Crown Jewel
The USA and World Twirling Championships held at Notre Dame last week confirmed what Beaver Stadium ticket holders have known for years: Nobody twirls a baton better than PJ Maierhofer. The Penn State senior (and star of football halftime shows as the Blue Sapphire, the Blue Band’s featured twirler), has earned the title of College Miss Majorette of America. Maierhofer claimed the overall crown after winning the “strut” competition, tying for first in the “model” category, and finishing tied for third in the “solo” competition.
Penn Stater magazine readers shouldn’t be surprised, though: Given the daily three-hour practice sessions PJ told us about when we featured her back in our Jan/Feb 2006 issue (you can click on the image above to enlarge), her success seems a fitting reward for lots and lots of hard work.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Scent of a Lion?
So you’ve got the Penn State look down — blue and white, of course, and maybe those pants with the little lions all over them. Possibly even rolled up, a la Joe Paterno.
Want to take it one step farther? Now you can buy a perfume inspired by campus. We wrote about it in our March/April issue, and The New York Times weighed in its Sunday Education Life section in a piece titled “Nittany in a Bottle.”
It’s not just Penn State that has a signature scent. (If you’re curious, the perfume is available at the Alumni Store.) Masich Collegiate Fragrances has created perfumes for several colleges, so the Times enlisted alums of Penn State, North Carolina, and LSU to do a “blind sniff test” and ask what smells they associate with campus. Meghan Day ’03 Com said Penn State was “cow manure, beer, barbecue and tailgating smells.”
Tough to disagree with that assessment, I guess. When you think of Penn State, what smells come to mind?
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Tom Verducci on ‘Field of Dreams’
Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) built a baseball diamond in his corn field and the Chicago Black Sox showed up.
The movie Field of Dreams marks its 20th anniversary this year. And Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci ’82 wrote an article recently that take a look back at a movie he calls “timeless.”
“Twenty years later,” Verducci writes, “Field of Dreams remains the quintessential moving-image expression of why we love baseball. Not major league baseball … but baseball as we discovered it and as we prefer to preserve it.”
You can read Verducci’s article here.
Tina Hay, editor
Our Hard-Working Photographer
Look for Clair Poletti on our Everyday People page, probably in the Nov-Dec issue.
One of our favorite photographers for the magazine is Bill Cardoni, who lives in the Poconos, or maybe New York City—I’ve never been clear which—and who doesn’t mind traveling here to do shoots for us. We usually try to come up with two different shoots on the same day to make the trip worth his while. Once in a while—like yesterday—he actually has three assignments in a day. Which is a lot, considering not only the travel time but also how much setup and teardown is involved with each shoot.
Ryan Jones, one of our senior editors, thought it would be fun to show up at yesterday’s shoots and take pictures of Bill taking pictures. So here are a couple of shots for you of Bill in action. The one above is from the first shoot of the day—it’s Clair Poletti, who is in charge of Penn State’s film office and who will be profiled on our Everyday People page in an upcoming issue (most likely November-December). Clair basically is the liaison to anyone who wants to film on campus, whether for a Hollywood movie, a Discovery Channel documentary, or whatever.
Nikki Greene will probably lead off our Sports section in Nov-Dec.
The second photo above is also from the Clair Poletti shoot.
Bill’s next assignment was across campus at the Jordan Center—the subject was Nikki Greene, a highly touted freshman on the Lady Lion basketball team. She’ll be the athlete profile that leads off our Sports section, most likely in the November-December issue.
(The Nikki Greene shoot was taking place at almost exactly the same time that Lady Lion head coach Coquese Washington was giving birth to her new daughter, Rhaiyna.)
Nikki checking Bill's work.
And the third shoot was back here at the alumni center and involved Sascha Skucek ’99, ’07g, whom you’ve probably never heard of, but who is a very interesting guy. He’s a lecturer in the English department who has spent quite a bit of time and energy in the past 10 years or so trying to help solve the murder of Betsy Aardsma, the grad student who was stabbed to death in the stacks in Pattee in November 1969. With the 40th anniversary of Aardsma’s death approaching, we’ve got a feature article in the September-October issue on the subject, and Sascha’s efforts play a big role in that story. He’s in the final photo, below.
Sascha Skucek plays a role in a feature in Sept-Oct, on the ongoing attempts to solve the murder of Betsy Aardsma.
By the way, if you visit Cardoni’s Web site and click on some of the links—like Portrait I, Portrait II, and Print—you’ll see quite a few photos you recognize, from past issues of The Penn Stater, as well as shoots he’s done for Philadelphia Magazine and others.
As always, if you click on any of these photos, you can see a bigger version.
Tina Hay, editor
Coquese Washington Welcomes a Bouncing Baby Girl
The latest addition to the Lady Lion basketball family isn’t a hot-shot recruit — although they’ve added a few of those recently — but a baby girl. Coach Coquese Washington gave birth Thursday to a daughter, Rhaiyna Kamille Brown. Congrats to Coquese, her husband, Raynell Brown, and brand-new big brother, four-year-old Quenton.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
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