The Strut Volume 1: El Verbo TV
REFLECTIONS | Amanecer
I’ll never face death as helplessly as I did as an embryo.
In August 1977, a car ran a red light at an Edmonton intersection. It collided head on with another car. A woman was in the backseat.
She and the others in the vehicle were taken to hospital. She only had whiplash. No one else was seriously hurt.
But a day later, she bled. She returned to the hospital and only then did she discover she’d be a mother. My mother.
But, so easily, that might not have been the case. A more acutely-angled crash, a slick road, a loose part—and, well ...
If it came down to it, there’s no way I’d be able to extricate myself from a wreck. Much less a womb.
The allure of danger beckons like a finish line.
I don’t seek it, necessarily. But point-blank pistol confrontations, mountain-road castaway calls for help, scarred legs, drunken misadventures and tattooed ribs could lead you to believe otherwise.
Those experiences are a precursor to what I’m about to do next—the biggest risk I may ever take. It’s a reminder that with every obstacle that stands in my way, there was always that time I dodged a fatal blow.
There’s a new challenge ahead of me now: what to make of the craft I loved, then hated, and now want to change.
Weird Illustration Interlude
UNREPORTED | How North American ski towns will contend with a restricted customer base this winter
Uncertainty is clouding over North American ski towns as the next season looms with the pandemic far from abating.
Shops in Aspen, CO are bracing for a drop in business despite promising signs over the summer, with advanced bookings happening much closer to visit dates than in previous years.
“Right now, everybody is in a holding pattern, waiting to find out what the governor will announce as far as restrictions that might need to be in place on the mountain,” Eliza Voss of the Aspen Resort Chamber Association told me. “What happens on the mountain will impact our community.”
There are other warnings: So far this year, retail sales are down, based on tax collection data.
In Rossland, BC—a ski town situated 25 kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border that relies on traffic at nearby Red Mountain Resort—businesses canvassed by the mayor’s office said they were cautiously optimistic that as long as the ski resort opens, they will weather the storm. But Red Mountain’s chief doesn’t expect the U.S.-Canada border to open this winter and he forecasts as much as a quarter reduction in resort visits.
Katkov is cautious to speculate on which local businesses will have the fortitude to survive, but he says, “the success of our resort flows down to Rossland, without a doubt.”
A ski industry insider believes Western Canadian resorts will see exaggerated “peaks and valleys” in revenue from week to week this season, with a bigger percentage of domestic guests translating into lower weekday traffic.
Are you interested in stories like this one? Let me know what you’d like me to report.
THE ARCHIVE | Prologue
As a child, I would do mock interviews with my cousins, shoving an invisible mike in their faces. Years later while a teenager in junior high, my first job was at the Lakeside Leader, where I’d manually stuff news sections together so the paper would be ready for delivery the next morning. But it wasn’t until I graduated from university and travelled to Colombia that I considered journalism as a career. In that era of mass e-mails, I’d send updates to friends of my adventures and mishaps. The response was positive. Two years after I returned to Canada, I was in journalism school.
Here’s an excerpt (edited) of one such dispatch.
Why I Bought A New Watch (
Friday, December 7, 2001
)
It finally happened. I had been wondering when it would be my turn. The premonitions were telling. The methodology: elementary. The execution: pathetic. But it happened.
Not heeding the insistence of my friend, Gabriel, to leave his house and catch a bus while they were still running, I finished my conversation with his roommate on the dangers of living in Colombia. Finally, minutes before 10:00 p.m., I left. I crossed an unlit park and came to a street leading to the one where I’d take my bus. The side of the street where I walked was dark and empty. The other side was lit. There was a bakery and some stands selling food.
A boy on a bicycle, riding with some urgency, rounded the corner and approached me. As he neared, I knew. He passed, almost brushing against me and I looked back without turning my body. He’d turned around and was coming back. I wasn't frozen, but I didn’t attempt to escape.
The boy, younger than I was, grabbed my arm and demanded my money. In his other hand was a gun. I reached for my wallet, shocked, but still calm. He tried to snatch it from me, but I pulled away slightly to take the cash out for him. I kept repeating for him to be calm. He seemed more nervous than I was.
I think he was surprised with how little money I carried, because he quickly scanned me for what else he could take to make the theft worthwhile. He asked for my watch. And he quickly reached into my pocket to take a pouch where I’d kept coins. Without it, I had no money to get home. I asked him to give it back, pleading my case. I don't know why I expected him to care.
I was tempted, only briefly to push him. He was misbalanced, with one foot on a pedal and the other on the ground. I opted not to provoke him. He fled.
His haphazard pillage was complete. I had a small satchel slung across my torso that he didn’t touch. If he’d bothered to rummage through, he’d have found my passport, my cell phone and the keys to my apartment. I returned to Gabriel’s place, humiliated but physically untouched. In my head I went through other possible outcomes. I could have crossed the street as he approached. I had time. I could have smoked him in the head as he was leaving to avenge my loss.
I paid about CAD$6.50 for a new watch.
Memorable Quote
MISC | Five despisable
clichés
in news writing
Police are investigating after ... // A false folo to keep a story fresh. We have no idea if police are, in that moment, actively looking for leads in any given incident.
A victim is recovering … // Do we know this? Did we pay the person a visit in hospital? Maybe they’re writhing in pain. Just another go-to folo phrase from the trusty newsroom desk.
The mood was sombre/festive/etc. … // Did we canvas the referenced group of people? If we took a random sample, is that how the majority would feel? Or, did we just project how we’d feel in that situation?
We are learning more about that … // A boilerplate lead-in to a folo* story that’s habitually used in CBC newsrooms.
A massive blaze/protest/crowd/gathering/etc. … // “Massive” is a staple adjective among broadcast writers. It’s perceivably dramatic when emphasized by the anchor while at the same time absolving them from being specific.
*folo in newsroom parlance is a follow-up or development in a recent story
NEXT | The Vantage
The Vantage is a media platform that I’m hoping to launch this fall that will rely heavily on data visualization, motion graphics and animation to tell stories.
I’m currently looking for collaborators and contributors who have these skills and/or web development skills. It’s a bonus if you have journalism experience, too.
Please e-mail me at info@thevantagemag.com if you’re interested or have questions.