matthew kielty. blog.

To Sheen

2011-03-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

Second assignment was a vox pop, basically run around and ask people a question or two and splice the solid answers together. I did my reporting on a cold day that had both snow and rain, but amazingly everyone, including those who claimed to be outside of the pop culture loop, could conjure up a definition, though most struggled to use it in a sentence.

Here's the piece:

At Salt

2011-03-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

We start with a promo for a fake show. Rob's goal is to get us all familiar with Pro Tools and the basics of mixing. I decided to make a show that is the product of Wyoming Public Radio, a show titled Where Have All The Bison Gone? This week, the program features stories about an 1895 expedition into Wyoming in search of a Triceratops skull and a guy who does death growls in his backyard everyday as a remedy for his chronic bronchitis.

Here's the promo:

The production is decent. My voicing still needs work. And, I spent around 4 hours cutting up a load of songs until I settled on Fly Lo's remix of Radiohead's "Reckoner." I love the tune.

Failed attempts were:

Flying Lotus - Massage Situation

Flying Lotus - Fall in Love - J Dilla Tribute

Flying Lotus - Auntie's Lock/Infinitum

Four Tet - Hands

Four Tet - Love Cry

Four Tet - Street Lullaby - Remix

Caribou - Bees

M. Ward - Silverline

Conversation with Writer Mattathias Schwartz

2010-08-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

My notes consisted of a few scribbles: "initial stages, form, background." These were hastily written in a notebook and aided by caffeine. On that Saturday afternoon, I needed caffeine to arrange even the most basic of thoughts.

A few days before I spoke with Mattathias Schwartz, my friend asked me what I planned to talk about with him. I said that I wasn't really sure. Then I think I threw out some generalities about crafting a story, or something. And that was all that I really wanted to get at when I called Schwartz last Saturday - the awestruck "how'd you do that; how'd you bring this into being?"

My first Schwartz read was only two weeks ago, when I read his New York Times article "Firing Line." There was something about his language that caught me ("his voice, which is well equipped for the stirring up of men"), so I searched for past work, and in no time I was floored.

There was this from his Warren Buffet profile for Harper's:

"The man drinks cola. He reads the paper. Every so often the phone rings and the man answers. Usually the answer is 'no.'"

Buffett is enormous, a monolith embodied in "the Man" and the anithesis of the Dude who abides. Those three sentences are planted amongst other sharp, minimalistic lines that further the cult of Buffett. You're ensnared.

Or, this lede in a piece about online trolls:

"One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head."

Each clause and phrase delay that suicide, and then it hits you. Suddenly the rhythmic non-essentials that came prior to the boy's death are magnified.

In two days, I'd gotten through what I could find of Schwartz's articles and got the idea to try to call him up. Luckily, Schwartz is a cool dude, direct and thoughtful, willing to abide.

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Here's an edited version of my conversation with Schwartz. He talks about some source material, story ideas, dissatisfaction, the writing process, etc.

I mentioned earlier that I really didn't have much of a game-plan; Friday night was long, but Saturday came quick.

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Other Work:

The Hold-'EM Holdup
The Golden Touch (full article available with Harper's subscription)
Teen Sex Energy / Land Money Power