My mom, bless her heart, is a quilter. She’s taught me her mad skillz — to a certain extent — but she’s still much more advanced than I am in the sense of actually seeing projects through to completion. She makes quilts for new grandnieces and nephews, and even done a few pieces on commission. My favorite that she’s made is the one she put together for my graduation from high school. It’s big enough to be a bedspread, and since she put flannel on the back of it, I often use that way. The pattern is pinwheels on the front piece, and she used all vintage-looking fabrics reminiscent of the 1940s, which were really popular when I was a teenager.

It wasn’t a coincidence that she gave it to me right before I headed across the country for college. She was fine with it, since I was attending her alma mater, and I was at first — until I had a massive meltdown on the first day of freshman orientation. There were a number of things that comforted me — including reruns of “Friends,” since they were the same in both places, after all — but the quilt my mom made for me was one of the best ones.

And now, I’ll just let the poem speak for me. Happy Mother’s Day, you fabulous Angela Petrelli look-alike.

***

Eden

As usual, she began this creation
Behind schedule: a carefully planted
Plot of flannel and cotton,
Received just a little late,

A flowing checkerboard
Of rose and bluebell and lilac.
Golden pinwheels twirl sun spots
Skittering and dancing across its surface.

Cut and basted, stitched and batted –
She labored over this fabric,
Embossing it with daisies
Stemming from white thread.

At bedtime I slip under this garden
Of blooms. Even though I’m so far
From home, she still manages to
Keep me safe and warm.

Yes, it’s been a long time, but it was for a good cause. And now that I have a new gig and a new routine, it’s about time I freshen this place up.

The perfect article for this is something I wrote nearly seven years ago and appeared, at that time, on the now-defunct site called MediasharX. (I also reviewed Gilmore Girls and The West Wing for MSX for a bit too.) Looking at it now, it almost seems like an historic document from another era. You see, back when I was a senior in college and beyond ready to graduate, I got a little hooked on discussing my favorite TV show online. In those days, we did that through message boards and a little thing called email. When I see what shows like Glee have going on today, with their Twitter and Facebook feeds, text updates and all the information you can imagine right at your fingertips, I can’t help but be a little jealous. In my day, we had to work for our fandom!

(And we weren’t exactly the most popular kids on the interwebs, either. You Bieber fans have no idea!)

So this is a recollection of constructing a fandom on the Internet and monetizing it—along with some media history and theory I learned in all of those comm classes. It was a lot of fun to write (and research), and it’s honestly one of the stories I’ve written that I like the most. Even if it’s outrageously dated by now.

***

If anything was learned from the Clay vs. Ruben controversy on American Idol, it’s this: Do not underestimate the power of the television fanatic. Bottles of Tabasco sauce flooded into WB network offices in 2000, courtesy of Roswell fans bent on saving their show from cancellation. One of the first organized fan campaigns fought to keep the original Star Trek on the air—and morphed into the legendary fandom that exists today.

The advent of the Internet has broadened the experience of being a fan. In the past, only the most obsessed fans gathered together at conferences or published ‘zines on their fandoms, lapping up details on the next film or comic book and revering the creators as demigods. Instead of that pathetic and bespectacled image, fans now brought together by the Internet are banding together and turning proactive to take control of their programs. They’re acting as network executives and paying for the privilege.

I’m one of them. And I only wear glasses for driving. Honest.

After going through Friends and ER, my current favorite is the ABC spy drama Alias. In many ways, I’m typical of the Internet fan. I spend much of my free time at the Web site TelevisionWithoutPity.com, nitpicking episodes and searching out spoilers with those similarly obsessed. And like many of this new breed of fan, I’m willing to put my money where my mouse is.

Aaron Nadler, a college student from Harrisburg, Penn., is a poster in the Alias forums at TWoP who assisted on a banner ad campaign hosted by fellow fans. When asked why he visits TWoP, he incredulously responds, “Why not?”

Fans all across cyberspace were thrilled to hear on Aug. 1, 2003, that the trendy Web site had resolved its ongoing financial troubles to continue its unique approach to fandom another year. The site’s forums give diehard television watchers an arena where such devotion is commonplace, but with the caveat that fandom does not automatically mean mindless adulation. When judging shows on TWoP, impartiality is discouraged. Once known as Mighty Big TV, TWoP was the place where The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin famously tussled with online fans as Benjamin, his nom de keyboard. He later dedicated a subplot on his show to illustrating his less-than-flattering impressions of TWoP users.

The site is well known across the Internet for its combination of cynicism and humor—more popularly known as “snark.” In one post, a typical TWoPer can go from proclaiming undying love for their show to ridiculing the main character’s speech pattern, makeup or very reason for existence. Mention the Pixel Challenge competition (a contest for the most creative use of Photoshop) and the words “Jennifer Garner Celebrity Hot Tub Party,” and you’ve got TWoPers across the world spitting diet soda on their keyboards. Another example of the site’s irreverent nature is the term “HoYay.” Short for “Homoeroticism, Yay!” it was jokingly invented by TWoP users to laud subtext of that very sort.

This mockery reflects the rough environment of the site. Instead of the typical juvenile gushing and flame-wars of most Internet message boards, respect is instituted in a trickle-down fashion. Moderators rule with iron fists, editing posts for failing to pass grammatical snuff and booting users who display embryonic signs of “trolling.” In turn, users are wound so tight with the thought of offending a moderator that they patrol fellow posters. Membership in the TWoP forums is a privilege for which one is not entitled by simple registration.

The restrictions only allow the most respectful cynics to post, thinning the pool to the most motivated—and articulate. “When I finally signed up, I found myself hanging about in a few of the forums—Buffy, 24, Angel, Alias—and I found an amazing group of insightful, polite and content-rich postings relating to those shows,” Nadler said. The intelligence and thoughtfulness on the site has lured many an executive producer to the thorny pages of posts, some of which certainly call for their heads. Sorkin is just one such muckety-muck. In an October 2002 article in The New York Times, Alias creator J.J. Abrams said, “I’ll accept a smart critique from anywhere, whether it’s from a 50-year-old studio executive or a 12-year-old kid in a rural town…They’re doing what I’d be doing if I weren’t working in TV.”

Alias premiered in the fall of 2001, and ever since, has become a program even fans find difficult to describe. The latter half of its most recent season had former double agent Sydney Bristow working with her father to bring down her nemesis, who had teamed with her treacherous, former KGB agent mother to locate the artifacts of a 15^th-century prophet.  She had also begun a romance with her CIA handler while her roommate was murdered and replaced by a genetically engineered double. And one throwaway scene this season confirmed that even jet-setting spies can receive their doctorates in literature. But if you want to know what happened in the one and a half seasons leading up to this, you’ll quickly learn that Abrams likes revamping his show’s premise.

With all the marketing challenges of such a Byzantine layout—It’s spiked with spy action! It’s a heartfelt family drama! It’s a rule-bending sci-fi!—ratings for Alias are tepid at best. The Nielsen ratings placed it around the 60th most popular show after its first season in the Sunday 9 p.m. timeslot, but scheduled against The Sopranos and an incarnation of the popular Law & Order franchise in its second, the ratings declined and placed it 72nd. Despite the lackluster showing, Alias has the buzz of a show exponentially more popular and a cult fanbase similar to those that sustained shows like The X-Files for years. For instance, the Alias forum is always buzzing and typifies all that is TWoP. The “Dear J.J.” topic opens a direct line from fans to creator. Humorous nicknames stemming from the popular recaps and from users themselves abound in casual conversation, such as the ever-popular “SpyDaddy.” But the rest of the forum isn’t always so complimentary.

The clichéd longing looks once exchanged between Sydney and handler Vaughn prompted one exasperated fan to plead for the other characters to play matchmaker by lining the hallways of the CIA and singing “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid. A beard and turban disguise worn by star Victor Garber in an episode last December elicited derisive snorts even from diehard fans of the actor. And many users grumbled about the blatant pandering the show made to the football audience by showcasing star Jennifer Garner’s lingerie-clad assets in the opening moments of the episode that aired after Super Bowl XXXVII in January.

The users at TWoP are media-savvy enough to understand how such a display figures into the economics of a television show—the Super Bowl gives a struggling show the lead-in of a lifetime, and by advertising a sequence straight out of Maxim, the network is just capitalizing on the demographics of a football game. Making sure Alias stays on the air is a prime concern of its fans as well, but they don’t like the effort muddying the integrity of the narrative. Sydney had never been a modest character, especially with her various disguises employing skin-tight rubber, but she is also an assertive, modern female. This was the first occasion where the objectification of her body for ratings purposes was blatantly obvious.

But instead of simply accepting commercially dictated changes like this as something they couldn’t control, the fans took matters into their own hands. In addition to making their feelings on the subject well-known in the “Dear J.J.” thread, fans turned to another method: advertising. And TWoP gave users the opportunity to spend their own money promoting their favorite show by handing over control of the forum banner ads—creating an odd, never-before-seen confluence of Internet and television advertising.

Internet users are very familiar with those pesky ads that ask you to pick a favorite color, or hit the bouncing ball, or tell you that you’re the site’s one-millionth visitor, all to get you to click. Visitors to the TWoP forums didn’t encounter any ads like this, instead seeing homemade banners crafted by amateur graphic artists. These banners advertised select shows, ones often not seen in the upper echelons of the Nielsen ratings, but worshipped by TWoP users nonetheless.

Glark, the online handle of David T. Cole, one of the three TWoP “elders,” said the decision to switch from corporate ads to those funded by users came early this year, mostly due to circumstances outside their control. “Ad brokers rarely want to place ads on pages with user-generated content due to its unpredictability,” he said. Because of this, few advertisers were buying ad space on the forums even though several hundred thousand users were taxing the limits of the servers (and the elders’ pockets) each day. The elders needed a way to generate cash to keep the popular site running in the short-term while investigating more permanent financial options. TWoP users knew that a decision on the site’s fate was coming after the end of the 2002-03 television season, and they were desperate to do something to show their support. Those two concerns met head-on in the forums’ ad space.

The setup allowed users to fire up Adobe Photoshop or other comparable graphics programs to create their own ads, or submit copy to Glark for design, which was included in the cost. Layering was also an option, which allowed any ad buyer to submit four separate ads. One ad would appear on each level of the TWoP forums, giving buyers more bang for their advertising buck. Ad creators could also designate text to appear in the banner’s alt tags. Ads initially cost $100 for 24 hours in the forums, and $50 for each consecutive day after that. These banner ads were for TWoP users alone—there was no tracking information provided for ad clients nor any of the bells and whistles associated with Internet advertising. “It was all grassroots stuff,” Glark said.

The opportunity for users to create their own ads caught on right away, and became one of the hallmarks of a site already famous for irreverent reverence. Creative promotion of individual shows began fast and furious—characters, popular couples, even wardrobe choices became fodder for banner ads. A whole thread devoted to banner ad praise—prime real estate on a Web site already strapped for bandwidth—allowed creators to interact with their instantaneous groupies. New ads would send observers scurrying to examine all the jokes in intimate detail, and an informal camaraderie blossomed amongst ad creators as they shared the warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting their favorite Web site.

But this didn’t mean there was no competition. The originality and sheer number of ads created by those known as TARflies (fans of The Amazing Race) and Wingnuts (The West Wing) upped the ante for all banner makers. Within weeks, all banner ad campaigns had to incorporate layers and snarky alt tags or face ridicule. There was even competition within the same fandom. Fans of the Tara/Willow lesbian relationship on Buffy the Vampire Slayer created ads condemning Tara’s death, using rainbow motifs and declaring, “They are the magic.” A group of opposing fans bluntly bit back by advertising that Tara was dead, signing the banner with “Fans of moving the hell on” and setting off a blistering flame war that likely ate more bandwidth than the ads covered. The monkey employed by the opposing users in their ad has since become the icon of the TWoP “Banner Ad Wars,” and is available on t-shirts and mugs for those who wish to preserve the memory.

For Alias, the gauntlet was thrown one afternoon last spring, when one poster spotted an amusing banner ad for the HBO prison drama Oz, which said, “Our HoYay can totally shank your HoYay.” Following a casual statement about the possibility of a banner ad campaign in the “Alias in the Media” thread, the next week passed with almost a thousand dollars raised from dozens of distinct users and more than 100 separate suggestions for ad copy.

Somehow, an impromptu organization took hold. Five different sets of ads were planned, and the copy concepts were divided accordingly: general ads about the show as a whole, then ads dedicated to the family of spies, the romance, and sidekicks/enemies as well as a thank you to the show’s creators. A group of four users amicably split the stresses of collecting votes for ad copy and publishing a Web site for Alias newbies intrigued by the ads. They tweaked copy and workshopped the graphics with two amateur designers who volunteered to create the ads based on the chosen favorites.

Nadler was one of the designers and used the opportunity to hone his burgeoning commercial design skills as well as augment his passion for the show. “A picture is worth a thousand words, and a funny banner is worth a thousand misleading commercials,” he said. “I think that promos for television shows should be catchy, memorable, and (have) a positive message about the show—without giving away the ending a week early.” The fan-voted spots favored more obscure characters and plotlines rarely referenced in network advertising, and definitely treated them with the TWoP flavor of snark.

On fan-favorite Mr. Sark: “Evil has never been so sexy.” On the broken relationship between Sydney’s parents: “Love means never having to say, ‘Why did you shoot me?’” On Sydney and Vaughn: “Screwing protocol. And each other. Keep your HoYay. We’ve got SpySex.”

Even though the show can be confusing to even the most dedicated viewer, these ads filled a void that Alias fans everywhere agreed that network advertising was not addressing. ABC is widely loathed for canceling low-rated fan favorites, including Sports Night, Once and Again and Cupid. The overwhelming belief in the forum is that the network cancels complex, intelligent programs it finds too difficult to promote, earning the nickname of “ABCimians” or, more simply, “monkeys.” Nadler points to one tagline as the epitome of the network’s lack of imagination in promoting such an intricate show.

“Also, ‘Double Oh-Yeah… with a kick!’—I mean, seriously,” he said. “That had absolutely nothing to do with the show, and plenty to do with making the show look stupid.” That’s only one of many fouls fans say the network has committed, including running a repeat on the weekend that the opening of Garner’s blockbuster movie Daredevil coincided with her appearance on Saturday Night Live, and a 40-minute post-Super Bowl show earlier this year that pushed Alias out of prime time on the East Coast.

To Sabrina Pavolini of Austin, Tex., the other graphic designer, this was ABC’s worst fumble. She said that as a subsidiary of Disney, ABC is failing to capitalize on numerous cross-promotional opportunities. But she also recognizes that fans may have more enthusiasm for the process. “Your average ad person is there to do a job. There’s a very good chance that they don’t have that ‘connection’ or special feeling for the show they’re working on,” she said. “To them, it’s just another day at the office. For people who love the show, I think it becomes more than that.”

Media scholar Henry Jenkins labeled this phenomenon as “textual poaching” more than 15 years ago, referring to fan activities such as fan fiction that have since proliferated on the Internet. Fans believe they have purer views of their favorite characters and plotlines than their creators do, so they wrestle control away. Fan fiction allows fans to rewrite narratives and plotlines in their own individual ways, but the banner ad campaign gave Alias fans the opportunity to take commercial control away from ABC under the belief that they could do better. “I want (the ads) to be something people notice—something to make them think ‘Wow, those Alias fans are amazing!’” Pavolini said. “In an ideal world, the banner ads would make everyone watch Alias.”

This enthusiasm resulted in 20 separate ads completely generated by fans, in content, design and funding. The campaign debuted to great praise from both Alias fans and TWoP users, and much to the delight of the hardworking fans, the incessant ads produced numerous converts. “Quick question—when is the season premiere of Alias? Because sadly enough…it was your brilliant banner ads that have sucked me into Alias,” said one user. “Go creative minds. Banner ads: they’re like heroin.”

After that initial ad campaign, the TWoP format changed slightly. Fifty dollars gave any submitted ad a week in the banner ad pool. Each click in the forums brought up a randomly selected ad out of the dozens in the pool at any given time. The topics broadened to praising the site’s recappers to conveying birthday wishes and campaigning for presidential hopeful Howard Dean—individual messages that up to 300,000 users see every day. Alias fans have continued to donate money to TWoP via banner ads in response to the show’s season finale, which was—at the very least—controversial. Sydney and Vaughn fans were upset that he was wearing a wedding ring in the last moments of the episode; Sark fans wondered what would come of the sexy assassin now that he was in CIA custody; and the show’s inexplicable jump two years ahead in time jarred everyone. The desire to express those opinions in pixelated form kept TWoP’s coffers overflowing this summer.

Even though fans were paying much less than corporate ad brokers, the temporary funding provided by the fan-sponsored ads allowed TWoP the freedom to negotiate new contracts. This led to the joyous announcement in August that the site would remain open for at least another year. Unfortunately, these contracts include forum ads, so those created by users will soon phase out. But the ads have become so popular that Glark has pledged they will live on elsewhere on the site, perhaps as part of the Pixel Challenge. “The response was great and certainly exceeded our expectations,” he said. “Our users are a great bunch.”

Thankfully, Alias fans received relief midway through the banner ad campaign with the news that ABC had decided to renew the show for a third season. The season premiere on Sept. 28 will provide the first clue as to whether the ads created by fans will actually boost ratings. With the possibility of a fourth season hanging on improved popularity, the producers may need all the help they can get.

The TWoP banner ads have proven that dedicated, intelligent fans are willing to work to save their favorite Web sites and television programs. Pay attention, J.J. Abrams: Even a simple, snarky campaign staged by the nerds and geeks of the world can’t hurt. They have the power. Just ask Clay Aiken.

We wouldn’t need to scramble in these kinds of situations if the pre-existing conditions were better for all involved, unfortunately, but that’s a different argument for a different time. Instead, I’d like to present something I started to write nearly 10 years ago as a memoir of sorts about the emotions I had around 9/11. Given the subject, the theme’s a little more “yay America!” when it comes to lauding recovery efforts, though the events of the past few weeks definitely show once again that humanity itself is pretty resilient. (This excellent piece on NPR’s “The Story” the other night proves that.)

This piece was also never finished. I apparently started getting into the nuances of patriotism vs. dissent, but didn’t complete the thought. So I’m just sticking to the relatively schmoopy parts here.

***

In the summer of 2001, I had a girl’s weekend with my best friend. We went on a road trip to Lake Tahoe, stayed in my cousin’s cabin for a night and went to see the Counting Crows perform at Caesar’s Palace on the South Shore. Looking back, I can remember a few moments that took away from the reverie of the trip, including the tricky navigation of the curves of Highway 89 along the lake’s western shore on a moonless night.

But what most made an impression was a comment by the opening act, Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket. Of course, I can’t remember the context of what he said, only that it was part of the typical musician’s ad-lib before a song. He commented on the fall of the once-infallible Rome, and said something along the lines of “Who knows how long this American empire is going to last?” It sent shivers up my spine. At that point in time, the idea of our society falling seemed as fantastical as those apocalyptic visions illustrated in films such as The Terminator or Independence Day. My mind just wouldn’t go there.

Little did I know that several months later, that comment would come screaming back to me as I saw footage of the World Trade Center collapsing on my little dorm-room-sized TV. I was lucky enough not to see it live. I was in my Shakespeare class at the time, and as I headed back home with a dining hall lunch in my hand, I knew something was wrong. Everyone I passed was talking on cell phone with shock written all over their faces, and a parked transportation van was blaring a radio news report with the keywords of “terrorism” and “hijack” coming across the waves. That definitely perked up my ears.

After returning home, I turned to that touchstone of college communication—AOL Instant Messenger. (In those days, getting in touch with friends across the country or down the hall stemmed from that one piece of software.) My roommate’s away message conveyed the country’s gut reaction in a very succinct way: “Fuck the terrorists.” I fumbled for my Internet home page—not thinking to flip on the TV—and finally understood the enormity of what was happening when I couldn’t even get onto ABC News’ Web site.

Like everyone else, I cried and shook upon seeing these foreign images on my screen. I called my father on the West Coast and begged him not to go to work, thinking like Chicken Little that the sky was falling. It took me a few hours for my muddled brain to come back to Phillips’ statement and realize something. This was a terrorist attack of epic proportions. It took an organized and concentrated effort. It was intelligent enough to target the nation’s air system when and where it was at its weakest—a weekday morning, and at a small outpost airport. Yet with all of the energy this group expended to demonstrate its hatred of America, the country didn’t roll over and cry uncle.

The systems in place weren’t expecting something of this proportion to happen, but they stayed in place. The skies were cleared of all aircraft in a matter of hours. Emergency personnel did what they needed to do and saved numerous lives. Lines outside blood donation centers stretched for blocks. We may not have been expecting an aggravation of that magnitude, and while the intended purpose had been to shake us to our roots and plant the seed for our eventual destruction, we rose to the occasion. I’ve never been prouder of us than when I realized that our physical and emotional structure had remained intact.

Those who know me well also know that my mother is a California public school teacher. Starting from a fairly young age, I (along with my brother) was pressed into service to help with various tasks—shutting down her room for the summer, hanging up bulletin boards, setting up computers, etc. After I graduated from college, moved back to my hometown and started a full-time job, I wasn’t really around during the day when she might have needed me. But then, my mother decided that she wanted me—with all of the infinite wisdom that comes with being a reporter—to talk to kids about how difficult it is to write, even for those of us who are paid to do it. A lot of her students get discouraged that they don’t write perfectly on the first attempt, and she really wanted me to drive home the point that we all screw it up at some point.

So if you don’t mind, I’d like to share a bit of the speech I prepared for the occasion—given that I think most of the people who might be reading this are writers themselves. As far as I recall, I didn’t stray too much from these prepared remarks (which also included props and a transparency!)…and the kids were actually into it. They asked questions and everything. Given that I couldn’t ever imagine following my mother into teaching, that was kind of a big moment.

***

Even for those of us who are paid to be good writers and editors can’t get everything right on the first try. It’s just not possible. Writing is too hard to make it come out perfectly. Even what I’m saying right now didn’t come out the way I wanted it to the first time I wrote it. When you’re writing, you’re taking a ton of information and turning it around and trying to present it in a way that’s interesting and communicates what you want to say. It’s something that’ll get easier the more you do it, so if you guys only hear one thing I say today, this is it: KEEP WRITING. It doesn’t matter what about. If you want to write something about your dog, or your favorite basketball team, or the characters from your favorite comic book or cartoon, do it. If it interests you and you have something to say, write it down. It doesn’t matter if you think it won’t be good enough. I do that all the time when I’m writing, and the worst thing you can do is let that fear scare you.

At my job, we have story meetings every Friday morning. That afternoon, we’re supposed to start making phone calls and interviewing people for our stories, and generally, we write four or five of them for each week’s paper. We get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to do all of our research and talk to everyone we need to, and our deadline is on Thursday mornings. You’d think it would be easy to get four or five stories written with that much time, but trust me, it’s not.

Every week, it’s inevitable that there’ll be a story I have to write that I’m not that excited about—this week, I had to write a story about a break-in at a little league snack shack—and if I start staring at that blank page on my computer screen, I’ll never get it done. I can always find an excuse to go play on the Internet or check my email or something else, but the truth is, I’m always having to fight through all those voices in my brain saying, “I don’t wanna do this.” Or, on the flip side, I could be writing about something or someone who’s really cool, and I’m scared that what I’ll write will never be as cool as the subject. But that kind of thinking just shuts you down and paralyzes you.

So, for me, the process starts with giving a pep talk to myself, or sometimes, even yelling at myself to just stop wasting time and do my job. I usually put on headphones and listen to music to tune out the people who I work with—when they’re working, they’re on the phone and yelling across the newsroom at each other, and it’s really distracting. Occasionally I have to take my laptop and just leave, and work instead at a coffee shop or some place where I can concentrate.

Sometimes, I think of things I want to say a couple of paragraphs down the road, so I’ll jot it down on a piece of paper so I can remember. Because, honestly? I can’t remember anything.

Most of the time, I have to set time limits for myself. If I start writing at 3 o’clock, I’ll make myself write 20 inches of text before 4 o’clock. (In newspapers, inches are the amount of space a story takes up.) Sometimes, I do get writer’s block, so I give myself a few minutes to go downstairs and get a glass of water, or to check my favorite Web site, or go sit in my editor’s office. But if I go beyond a certain time limit, I’ll lose my train of thought. And then, generally, after a while, I find my writing groove and I’m able to get out what I need to get out. But I’m not done even if I think I am.

The most important part is going back over your work when you’re done and checking it for all sorts of stuff: Things that aren’t spelled right, commas that aren’t in the right place. Writing of mine has been published for almost five years now, and there are still times I’ll write a sentence that makes absolutely no sense or use the wrong kind of verb. I find all kinds of errors like that because when I’m writing, I get caught up in the moment and don’t go back to check what I’ve done. Sometimes, I have to read what I’ve written aloud, or at least whisper it to myself. I’ve come across way too many run-on sentences and awkward phrases while doing that, because hearing it is so much different than just reading it on paper.

There are a lot of other things I check too, but before I can look at them with a clear head, I have to stand up and stretch or do something for at least 10 minutes or so, just so I can clear out my brain and go back with fresh eyes. I check to make sure that I have a really interesting topic sentence, because you want someone who’s reading a newspaper to want to read your story.

I also make sure that I have a kind of “thesis” sentence, where I quickly sum up what I’m going to say in the story. We call that a nut graf, because we’re taking everything the story’s about and pressing it down into a tiny little space, like a nut.

I make sure that not every sentence starts with the same word or phrase, like “he” or “then” or “I” or something like that. It’s also really easy to use the same word twice in a really small space when you’re describing something. There are a lot of times I have to pull out a thesaurus to help me find something different.

I check to make sure that each sentence and each paragraph flows to the next, because you want to take your reader on a trip with you through your story, and you don’t want them to get confused if you jump around from subject to subject. Sometimes, I have to move paragraphs or sentences around if it makes more sense for them to be in a different order. That can be a really painful thing to do, but it’s necessary.

I check to make sure I’m not saying something in 10 words that I could say in two—writing too much has always been a problem for me—and I think a lot of editors and teachers appreciate it when you’re clear and you get to the point.

One of the most important things I have to do is read my story while pretending to be someone else. Of course the story will make sense to me: I’m the one who wrote it, and I know all the information that went into it, and which information that I thought wasn’t important enough. It’s a difficult thing to do, but I have to not be me for a short time. I pretend to be my mom or my editor—someone who has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about before they read my story and see if they would understand what I’m talking about, or if there’s information that needs to go there to help them along. There are a lot of times when I have to go back and add in another fact that I forgot.

For you guys, I know it’s probably hard to try to do a lot of these things. When you’re writing in class, you’re writing on paper, and it’s a lot harder to go back and erase what you’ve written and start over. You also can’t listen to music or go walk around on campus if you want to. So, here are some ideas to help you guys out:

First of all, I would keep a notepad or a piece of paper nearby when you’re writing so you can try out sentences or words that you’re not sure about without messing up. Of course, if you’re writing a sloppy copy, you may not need to worry about that so much, but it’s still a big help.

I also know that getting started can be a big problem when you’re staring at that blank sheet of paper. But you have to push through it when you’re scared like that, or else nothing’s going to happen. That may be the hardest part about writing, period. You’re sitting there, and your whole body is screaming at you to run away and go home. I know that happens because it happens to me ALL THE TIME, and I’m supposedly a professional! But once you start writing, something happens, and the flow just comes.

One thing you guys can do is give yourself a time-out if you can’t think of something to write. Look at the clock on the wall and give yourself a full minute to let your brain play and think about whatever you want. You’re just thinking, you’re not playing with your pencil or talking to your neighbor. And pick something you really like—your favorite sports team or musical group—and think about them for a full minute. Don’t go, “Ack, I only have 30 seconds left!” Just let your brain go, and at the end of that minute, you start writing. No exceptions. Thinking about something you like should get your creative juices flowing.

Most of the time, I’m writing stories about actual people and places, but I know a lot of what you guys are doing is making up your own stories, and that’s really cool. I haven’t done too much writing like that, but when I have, I almost never start at the beginning. You’re always going to have more than one draft of a story and plenty of time to go back and fix it. Let your creativity take you wherever it wants you to go.

And one thing that I think is really important when you’re writing is to enjoy yourself. It can be so much fun if you stop worrying about it and just do it, and one way to enjoy it is to make it unique like you. Write about things you like, or put personal touches into your writing. Mrs. Rost [Ed. note: Ha, that's my mother!] and I were talking just last night about writing about your favorite restaurant. You guys have gotten assignments like that, right? And of course, the first thing everyone writes is: “My favorite restaurant is…” But isn’t that boring? What if you said something like, “I remember going to McDonald’s for the first time when I was 5,” or, “I dream about Big Macs.” That’s fun to write, and interesting to read, and it gives you a good jumping-off point for the rest of your writing.

And, of course, don’t feel like you have to write perfectly on the first try. There’s no writer in the world who can do it. Maybe once, but not over and over again. Take your time, go back and reread what you’ve done, and don’t get scared. There are tons of writers out there who are way better than I am, and sometimes when I read their stuff, I start thinking that I’m really bad at what I do and I should quit. But then I go back and reread things I’ve written. Of course, there are always tiny things I wish I could go back and change, but overall, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done. Every writer has a different style, and once you find yours, it’s so totally worth all the worry and the fear.

Wherever you are, I hope 2010 is your best one yet!

***

Eden

As usual, she began this creation
Behind schedule: a carefully planted
Plot of flannel and cotton,
Received just a little late,

A flowing checkerboard
Of rose and bluebell and lilac.
Golden pinwheels twirl sun spots
Skittering and dancing across its surface.

Cut and basted, stitched and batted -
She labored over this fabric,
Embossing it with daisies
Stemming from white thread.

At bedtime I slip under this garden
Of blooms. Even though I’m so far
From home, she still manages to
Keep me safe and warm.

Migraine

Sometimes I sneak up behind you
As you’re bent over the computer screen,
Or I crawl up your sheets
While you’re still asleep.

I ignite the embers behind your eyes –
They burn in protest.
I send waves of red hot blood
Coursing through your brain
So hard you can hear the
thump-thump.

Oh, does that hurt?

So you think you can banish me
With chemicals and pills?
Boy, have you got a lot to learn.

I make your stomach convulse and churn.
You hold your own hand to your forehead
So long you can’t stand
The smell of your own skin.
And that stale Gatorade taste in your mouth?
Quite bothersome as well, I would think.

What did I tell you?

You lie prone on your bed
Cursing my existence,
Wishing that your own body
Would listen to you for once.
It’s too bad you haven’t figured it out yet.
Close your eyes and I’ll just melt away.

Almost immediately after seeing it, I started writing this. What can I say? It left me with a strong opinion of Anna Wintour. While I put it aside afterward—mostly out of a sense of, who am I to critique Vogue?—rereading it now makes a lot more sense than it did then as print continues to suffer.

So while this isn’t a straight-up movie review like my previous post on The Bourne Ultimatum, it still reminds me of something I would have written in college—but instead of turning it in to an editor at the DTH,  I would have submitted it to one of my professors in the comm studies department.

***

Vogue and I never really had a relationship. When I was in high school (and long before I ever knew I’d end up working in the world of magazines), I picked up a few issues when I realized I was getting too old for Seventeen and wanted a different source for pretty clothes. But all it taught me was that there was a class of people I could never dream of joining. They lived in New York, vacationed in places like Sag Harbor and Saint Tropez, and wore clothes by designers I couldn’t even pronounce. The only piece of information I retained from those pages is that there are three Miller sisters, who all married into royalty—the design, philanthropic and literal varieties.

Once I began working for a beauty magazine, I had to pick it up again—along with every other major woman’s book—as part of my job. I’d flip through the new issues each month, looking for mentions of our advertisers (naturally) and new trends in cosmetics. Doing so over and over for several years gave me an impression of each title’s aim and focus…and I wasn’t surprised to see that Vogue hadn’t changed much in the dozen or so years since I’d last picked it up. Some of the images were gorgeous, of course, but many—with bland, neutral backgrounds – seemed repetitious from issue to issue. The stories on Botox and thousand-dollar clothes reeked of privilege, and it was still a gossip sheet writ large for the Upper East Side.

So naturally, I was curious to see The September Issue, a documentary about the fashion bible shot while the staff pieced together its fall fashion edition in 2007. Now that I oversee photo shoots and judge layouts of my own, I wanted to witness how they did all of that inside the vaunted Condé Nast hallways. I had to determine whether Andre Leon Talley is as ridiculous in person as his headshot and columns make him appear. And of course, Meryl Streep needed a reality check—was the real Anna Wintour actually as heartless and cunning in her disapproval?

After an afternoon at the movie theater, I learned that the answer is no—at least to the latter. While opinionated and swift in her decision-making, she was never cruel to her employees. In several scenes in her own office—which did bear a striking resemblance to the set of The Devil Wears Prada—Wintour sorted through photo options from various designers and made snap decisions about which ones would go and which would stay. Some editors would offer a half-hearted defense for a look they particularly liked, but their protests quickly faded under Wintour’s judgmental glare. She’d smile tightly, and kid around with staffers, but she never seemed to be overtly mean. (Of course, she could have been playing up her softer side for the cameras, but who knows?) Despite mentions of her icy persona in the documentary itself, I still didn’t buy it; too often, women in leadership positions who act decisively and without an overly fuzzy personality get a bum rap when men at similar levels behave the same way and no one bats a perfectly curled eyelash.

No, Anna Wintour’s problem is not that she’s unfriendly—it’s that she has no vision. There’s a certain irony in watching The September Issue now, more than two years after its footage was shot…and probably 18 months or so since print journalism’s gradual slide downward began its current sharp spiral. The scene in the documentary where Vogue’s advertising staff crows about the 644 pages of advertising they sold for the September 2007 issue—enough to qualify as the magazine’s largest ever—is a bit sad knowing that the subsequent two fall fashion-focused editions have been mere shadows of that high mark. Wintour was also able to place spread after spread throughout the issue, seemingly without having to carve any of them up to fit ads or drop any due to space issues. (Many of the spreads are of gorgeous images planned and styled by Grace Coddington, Vogue’s creative director and the one staffer who dares to push back at Wintour.)

This lack of vision is relevant because the documentary makes such a point of showing how influential Wintour is in the fashion industry—a point with which I doubt many would disagree. She holds private audiences with designers for previews of their collections, and she hand-picked the wunderkind Thakoon for a Vogue partnership with The Gap, propelling him toward his career in couture. As for the magazine, her main contribution is underscored as turning its focus toward celebrity culture, especially by putting famous females on the cover. (Indeed, the cover girl in September 2007 was the starlet Sienna Miller.)

But that change is one that took place in the 1990s, and something I now see lambasted in various corners as the new millennium brought on a constant rotation of starlets such as Miller, Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johanssen. Over the last two years, as all magazines (especially those pushing high fashion) have taken a nosedive, Vogue has gone retro with covers featuring supermodels such as Linda Evangelista—the very thing that Wintour was lauded for reversing. Did that move bring greater financial success to Vogue in the 1990s and early 2000s? Apparently so, given the company line from Condé Nast as it’s stated in the film. As my movie-going companion pointed out, focusing on celebrities may have helped Vogue make a bigger penetration in Middle American markets that don’t necessarily follow high fashion—but given the magazine’s remaining insistence on following the New York social scene (which still alienates this blue state native), I’m not so sure that helped retain that audience.

Other than that decade-old accomplishment, what does Wintour bring to the pages of Vogue? After years of following the magazine and 90 minutes in a movie theater, I don’t know. Yes, she’s a strong leader who seems to know exactly what she wants, and quickly—but in all of those scenes where she made snap judgments, she gave no reasons behind her decision. Or, more accurately, none other than “This doesn’t seem necessary” or “There’s too much black.” While creative editing on the documentarians’ part may have a hand in this depiction, she seems like nothing more than a dictator whose word stands based on a stale military victory. Late in the film, she decides to nix the results of a photo shoot on color blocking that Coddington oversaw and order a reshoot—with apparently no new direction given. (Wintour felt free to cut multiple pages of many of Coddington’s shoots; after removing a number of spreads from an ethereal ‘20s shoot, Coddington remarked that Wintour had just put the kibosh on about $50,000 worth of work. It’s hard to believe such waste would fly in today’s magazine market.) The previous color block shoot had been shot in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge with bright hues all around; the reworked version appeared to have been completed in a Long Island studio with a neutral background—just like any number of Vogue spreads over the past few years.

It’s not a stretch to say that Coddington may have more artistic vision than Wintour does. The film quotes one Vogue staffer as saying that there’s no one else who can style shoot and produce beautiful photography in the same way that Coddington does—perhaps a testament to the time she spent as a model in London in her youth. It could even be argued that the film makes an argument that Coddington is best qualified to lead Vogue, perhaps while leaving Wintour a place to continue influencing fashion. Coddington cut an imposing figure in the film as she stood looking out over a regal French garden, her mass of kinky red hair flowing in the wind, before overseeing a shoot on the latest haute couture. While standing there, she lamented that her vision of a more romantic world in Vogue had dated her, while the currents of fashion (heralded by Wintour) passed her by.

But after seeing the striking work she produced for the September 2007 issue—both published and unpublished—it’s painful to think of what she may have had to sacrifice in her concepts and vision to suit smaller magazine sizes since then.

And this is where Wintour falls flat. She had one idea—the embrace of celebrity culture—that once brought Vogue great success and didn’t sustain the brand after the bottom fell out. And what’s happened since then? Competitor Elle won the race between beauty and fashion books for the September issue this year, scoring more advertising pages than Vogue. It might be prudent to do a comparison between the ads in the two magazines, to determine which advertisers Elle reeled in that Vogue did not. I highly doubt they brought in more high-end labels and retailers, so maybe the idea should be to aim a little lower, toward the affordable fashion that real people need these days.

But as Coddington illuminated in the film’s last plot point, those folks are hardly seen in Vogue anymore. She and photographer Patrick DeMarchelier enlisted the help of one of the documentary’s cameramen to appear in a shot for the color block shoot, which was then Photoshopped to appear as though a model were in the same frame. Wintour made a comment that her staff would also need to Photoshop out the cameraman’s slight belly paunch, an order that Coddington quickly reversed.

It’s a new world for print media, and The September Issue is a time capsule of how it used to be. So far, though, this new world still includes Wintour and her vague, old-school ideas of what works. But in order for Vogue to survive, it’s going to realize that it needs to change course as well.

The reason why is that they’re both columns I wrote as audition pieces for the editorial page of the DTH. Every semester, there would be writers, typically from the general student population and not from the DTH staff, who helmed a column one day each week. Most of them were your typical college writers, trying to push boundaries with lots of talk about sex and such. And at points, I thought about giving it a shot myself, just because. As a Californian going to school in North Carolina, I was a bit of an oddity there…or so my friends made it seem. So I thought I might have some interesting thoughts to share.

And here’s where I started.

***

Before I begin, there’s something I must let you all know.

I am in love with the pets.com sock puppet.

I don’t know exactly when this love affair began. I remember seeing the commercials featuring the precocious puppet during the fall of my freshman year, and soon thereafter, I was imitating the famous “Three dollars!” love with my bare hand, and later on, with a sock, much to the delight of my friends and suitemates.

I also fail to pinpoint exactly why this fabric-and-button creation delights me so much.

Perhaps it’s because I’m from the Silicon Valley area of California, and the pets.com sock puppet lends some much-needed levity to the fast-paced world of IPOs and dot-coms. Maybe it’s the human wristwatch substituting for a collar, or the pets.com microphone attached to his argyle hand with green electrical tape.

I also enjoy the insult comic dog stylings of Triumph, of Conan O’Brien fame, but there’s just something about a sock puppet imitating the singing group Chicago that tickles my fancy.

Pretty soon, I had found a picture of the puppet online and set it as the desktop on my computer.

People started emailing my media files of the commercials, and finally, last summer, I plunked down 20 bucks to buy my own from the website. In reality, pets.com, like many online retail stores, hasn’t broken even at all, and is hoping these puppets will turn them around.

Why am I telling you this potentially embarrassing story about myself at the beginning of months of what promises to be wry and witty commentary? To give a “this-can-happen-to-you” type portrait of what results from watching too much TV? Believe me, I know I watch too much, and my mother reminds me of that fact on a regular basis.

I figured that before I revealed anything about myself, I should clue you in on one vital fact about Allison Catherine Rost: I am goofy as hell.

The pets.com sock puppet is just the tip of the iceberg. I trip over my feet on a regular basis. I have nearly every episode of ER on videotape. I know how to tap dance and network computers. I can’t properly make a bed to save my life.

I’m sure some of you are wondering what kind of moron I might be, but in reality, I think I’m as normal as I can be.

I never would have admitted to things like this several years ago. I guess one of the big things that has happened to my since I came to college is that I’ve grown more comfortable in my own skin.

In high school, I was completely self-conscious. I rarely told anyone secrets and I felt like people would laugh at me if I revealed any personal facet of myself because I was just that strange.

And while people may be laughing at me now for that same strangeness, I’ve come to realize the goofiness is an innate part of me.

A good friend recently told me, “Who cares what other people think? Life is too short to shape your behavior on someone else’s standards.”

So I may be awed by snow like a four-year-old or walk into walls in my dreams or amuse myself with a sock puppet. So what? I’ve embraced my idiosyncrasies, and so should you.

And let that set the tone for this column.

***

Although I have come to love Chapel Hill and North Carolina like a native, I still sometimes feel like an outsider.

When I first got here, the question on many people’s minds was why in the world would a Californian like myself choose to go all the way across the country to go to college.

I’ve answered the question so many times that the response is automatic: my mother grew up near Charlotte, I’m a third generation Tar Heel, I have relatives in North Carolina and scattered throughout the East Coast, and it’s a great school.

But the biggest reason in my mind is one that is difficult to articulate: I needed a change. I was born and raised in California, and while I do like it there, I needed to get the hell out.

It’s hard to explain because many people I know think California is the Promised Land where everyone walks around carrying surfboards, the roads are paved in gold, and unicorns are the primary mode of transportation.

My choice of university was also difficult to explain to people back home. One classmate expressed concern at my going to school in the middle of a hayfield, and another asked, “How can you go to North Carolina with all of that racism back there?”

Ahhh, the perpetuation of stereotypes.

There are most definitely big differences between the two locales. In California, the freeways are wider and the drivers are crazier. At least in NorCal, where I’m from, the climate varies little from season to season, and the summers are so cool that Mark Twain once commented that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.

We get earthquakes as opposed to hurricanes, and the cuisine and the lingo differ a bit.

But when I’ve had to explain the differences to California people, it’s been hard. I usually come up with something stupid like the vegetation and the weather is different. How can I condense all I have learned about North Carolina into generalizations that (mostly) ignorant Californians can understand?

I’ve chosen my words carefully, and while I admit there are hicks here (as there are everywhere), they are mostly hidden away in the rural areas, and I can say this because before Carolina, my previous exposure to North Carolina was limited to a small mill town.

Other than that, people are people. Most North Carolinians I’ve met aren’t far off from the people I knew in high school.

It’s been fun to burst people’s bubbles on some misconceptions. For instance, I don’t see movie stars all over the place.

But while I’m bursting bubbles, it’s fair to give Carolina a turn. While I’m sure UNC is diverse compared to the rest of North Carolina, I’d like to take whoever writes the prospective student brochures to UC Berkeley, the college many of my high school compatriots attend, where the Asian student population outnumbers all others. And to those students who think Chapel Hill is liberal, I’ll just say that a popular name for that flagship University of California campus is the People’s Republic of Berkeley.

However, my favorite bubble-bursting activity involves those skeptical Californians who thought I’d come home scared of all those redneck Ku Klux Klan members. They’d get a concerned look on their face and ask, “How was North Carolina?” I surprised them all when I said, “I loved it. And I’m going back.”

It was difficult to come here in the beginning when I knew absolutely no one. I bawled like a baby the first day of C-TOPS. But I knew college was a prime opportunity to sample life on the other coast. For those of you who haven’t been west of the Mississippi (and I know there are many of you) use this time to explore foreign areas of the country, or even the world, before jobs, marriage, and kids tie you down. You could even intern in San Francisco like I did last summer. Just remember to bring your sweater.

While I may or may not move back to the Golden State after graduation, at least I have had this time here. Through years of spending summers here with my grandparents, I always felt more at home, even with the heat and humidity.

And while California may have a certain caché to it, I’ll take my sweet tea and Moon Pie over bottled water and baby spinach any day.

***

And just because every DTH column on the editorial page ended this way (correct as of the time these were written):

Allison Rost is a sophomore communications and sociology double major from Fremont, Calif. You can reach her at alikona@email.unc.edu.

So these two poems seem appropriate to share today. The first was inspired by Thanksgiving travel during my college era, and the second by the woman who took me in for Thanksgiving all four of those years…and then some. Her 89th birthday would have been on Tuesday, and this is my first Thanksgiving without her.

(Oh, and a note: The first poem is a form known as a pantoum, in which the repetition is part of the design.)

Stand-By

I know my turn is yet to come –
Waiting for the almighty loudspeaker
As I’m held here in limbo
Gagging on this stale coffee smell.

Waiting for the almighty loudspeaker,
We all squirm in these fake leather chairs;
Gagging on this stale coffee smell,
Sneaking sideways glances at each other.

We all squirm in these fake leather chairs
As a couple argue over their son’s head,
Sneaking sideways glances at each other,
Still bickering over what “family vacation” means.

As a couple argue over their son’s head,
An older woman thumbs a magazine –
Still bickering over what “family vacation” means!
Overachievers concentrate on their calculators

And an older woman thumbs a magazine.
In front of a Thanksgiving reunion,
Overachievers concentrate on their calculators
As weary travelers are welcomed home.

In front of a Thanksgiving reunion,
I yearn to hear my own name called
As weary travelers are welcomed home
With hugs and tears freely flowing.

I yearn to hear my own name called
As I’m held here in limbo –
With hugs and tears freely flowing,
I know my turn is yet to come.

***

Grandmother, 1941

Your crackling knees and papery skin belie
this youthful figure carelessly jitterbugging
the afternoon away as attack planes sit idling
across an ocean. Your hips, slim before they bore
five children, shimmy and shake as I flip
through these black pages. Your bright eyes
adore the photographer, your future husband,
who had to go perform his patriotic duty before
you could actually marry. Your curly brown hair
and toothy smile reflect me like a mirror,
our faces echoing across the decades as we sit
laughing together, reliving the life that led to me.

After graduating from college, I largely fell out of the habit of writing reviews. But in 2007, I saw The Bourne Ultimatum, which is now one of my favorite movies. It got my brain racing, and I had to write the following. It’s longer and a little more involved than a typical DTH review would have been (I can thank the media studies degree for that), but here it is anyway—in all of its G. Dub glory.

(And I gave it four and a half feet.)

***

When Robert Ludlum first wrote the novels that immortalized the exploits of embattled spy Jason Bourne, his title character roamed a world wrought with Cold War fears and conflict in Vietnam. The Bourne Identity, the first movie that placed Matt Damon in the role, came on the heels of a new era—post 9/11 terrorism fears. And, as we all know, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of suspicious-looking neighbors, confiscated gels and liquids, and wiretapped phone calls ever since then.

So, in a way, The Bourne Ultimatum is exactly the kind of film that Americans need to see right now—and the kind that they don’t need to see at all.

Picking up right where The Bourne Supremacy, the second film in the series, left off, Damon returns as the amnesiac Bourne, the highly trained government assassin who is still trying to piece together his past. He hobbles injured around Moscow after Supremacy’s bravura car chase scene, while a team of CIA sleuths back in the U.S. tries to track him down before he can sabotage their top-secret program even further.

That team includes Joan Allen, wonderfully reprising her role as the sympathetic Pamela Landy, and new-to-the-series David Strathairn, who plays against type as the flinty Noah Vosen, a deputy director determined to bring an end to Bourne’s travels no matter the cost. The twosome track Bourne from London to Madrid to Tangier before his desire to know who he was drives him to New York, where Landy and Vosen are waiting for him.

It’s not a surprise that over the course of five years and three films, the franchise has wonderfully matured. The first film was entertaining yet unremarkable, but it was when director Paul Greengrass took the helm for Supremacy that Bourne’s complex story got a needed jolt thanks to jittery camera angles and bone-crunching fights that place you right in Bourne’s well-worn shoes. Greengrass takes it to the next level in Ultimatum without trying to outdo what’s already been done; while it’s tempting to roll your eyes when the newest set of flashbacks powers up and big CIA muckety-mucks start barking at their underlings to “FIND JASON BOURNE,” there’s a new sense of desperation flooding every scene. Instead of capping the film with a car chase similar to the jaw-dropper that ended Supremacy, Ultimatum runs its last chase with at least 20 minutes to go, instead ending with a scene on a Manhattan rooftop that satisfyingly brings the trilogy full circle. (I would recommend catching up with the previous two movies before seeing Ultimatum; not only will those who pay close attention get a nice reward, but there’s a definite sense of finality to this one.)

Ultimatum continues to make a name for itself in a number of ways: The locales are different, the score (by John Powell) incorporates familiar melodies from the earlier movies yet infuses them with new energy, and Damon proves once and for all that he has enough action-flick know-how to pair with his everyman appeal for an intriguingly real, nuanced character. While Bourne continues to walk away from horrendous car crashes and intense sparring matches, he does so with bloody scratches and a limp. When Bourne pairs up with Nicky Parsons (played by a fairly lifeless Julia Stiles), he doesn’t bed her like a James Bond-type character might; instead, he looks at her with eyes that are still searching for his dead girlfriend Marie, who was killed at the beginning of the second movie—an eternity in the testosterone-fueled world of the typical thriller.

And most importantly, he doesn’t kill indiscriminately. When escaping Moroccan authorities, he throws a can of spray paint onto a fire and pushes away those people standing nearby. Every life he takes is considered and mourned, even if he kills someone who was trained the same way he was—by conditioning to remove the slightest bit of human remorse. This is what makes Ultimatum hugely comforting—and at the same time, incredibly frightening.

To his credit, Strathairn fully inhabits a heartless role, but it’s difficult to see his character as anything other than a representation of the current administration. (With Greengrass including a flashback scene of Bourne undergoing a waterboarding procedure, it’s tough not to draw that conclusion.) Vosen issues kill orders for U.S. citizens and operatives on nothing more than mere suspicion, and when Landy dares to ask how far he’ll go, he bites back, “Until we win.”

We also catch wind of a report that Bourne resisted his initial training, which intended to beat the conscience out of him and evidently malfunctioned, resulting in the tortured hero we see today. But this plot point begs an important question: Why is conscience something worth killing? Who exactly are Bourne and his ilk being asked to kill that would require it gone? The overwhelming sense of reality in The Bourne Ultimatum makes this tough to ponder. It’s nice knowing that someone working in our name has one, but troubling that our government would consider it a handicap.

Of course, this isn’t to say that Ultimatum is meant as a political statement, or anything other than what it is: a hugely entertaining movie. A rooftop chase scene in Morocco dazzles the senses with unbelievable camera work and a heart-pounding soundtrack, and an early sequence at London’s busiest train station looks as though as it were filmed alongside regular commuters making their way home. Bourne instructs a British journalist (those nimby-pimby sorts) on how to make his way out of the terminal while ducking sweeping surveillance cameras and lurking thugs, and it’s hilarious watching Bourne use the same precise training he received against those who gave it to him as they scratch their heads in bewilderment. They can’t believe that one of their own has turned against them.

Which possibly proves that in the end, our greatest danger could really be ourselves.

It’s November. Not only is it getting cold (even in Los Angeles), but it’s also the start of the college basketball season. If you hadn’t already figured it out before, I’m a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which tends to field a fairly decent team every year. In fact, the Tar Heels played North Carolina Central tonight…and beat them 89 to 42. So my head is a little wrapped up in college nostalgia, which made me think of the below tidbits.

These are anecdotes I put together as part of the “24 Hours” project for The Daily Tar Heel during my sophomore year of college. Writers from all desks of the DTH observed activities on the UNC campus over the course of one winter day–from noon on a Thursday until noon on a Friday. My segment was from 10 a.m. on Friday until noon that day. I walked all over campus, wrote up these little vignettes and turned them in, coming back to the newsroom a day or so later to see that the editor-in-chief at the time marked all of mine as “solid.” However, when the special section came out, none of my contributions were included.

C’est la vie, of course, though at the time I was pretty devastated (a wee lass, I was). I really liked these moments-in-time, and I still do. And since they were never published, I think it’s entirely appropriate that I post them here. Especially now.

(And two of these were based on actual experiences, with real characters and events from my daily life at that time. I’m pretty sure you can tell which ones are which.)

***

10:11 a.m. The morning sun is just beginning to peek over the top of Cobb, and the life of the slab of thick ice layered on the front lawn is coming to an end. Loud cracks spell its doom, and the grass sticking through the ice finally begins to feel some relief. Cars obliviously coast by on Country Club Drive. Meanwhile, the pansies and daffodils meant to impress visitors over by Jackson Hall look humbled and defeated as melting ice splats all around them.

10:17 a.m.: Two of those ubiquitous tour groups have congregated outside of Mangum. One tour guide assuages nervous parents by talking about the safety measures in place on campus such as SAFE escort. The other tour guide tries to make a joke about fake I.D.s. The parents laugh nervously in response. The sounds of garbage trucks behind Davis nearly drown everyone out. They continue on, each group going in opposite directions.

10:41 a.m.: A group of orange-garbed workmen fiddle with the traffic light on Franklin Street at the Bank of America Center using what seems like a glorified vacuum cleaner.

Meanwhile, the pedestrians waiting at the light are too impatient. They wait for a break in traffic and hightail it across, backpacks and purses bouncing.

A dapper older man window-shops in front of Julian’s. After glancing to see if anyone’s looking at him, he ducks in.

A semi-truck labeled “El Sol Mexican Restaurant Supplies” pulls away from the curb.

And another group frustrated with the length of the traffic light attempts to dash across the street.

10:56 a.m.: The requisite throng of South Campus residents crowds the U-bus at its last stop of Raleigh Road. However jubilant they are over the end of class for the week, a titter goes through the crowd as their chances at a seat grow slimmer and slimmer.

“When is y’all’s spring break?” yells the bus driver. When someone gives her the correct dates, she remarks, “I gotta get myself some vacation.”

11:11 a.m.: Over Chick-Fil-A and Dr. Pepper in downstairs Lenoir, a group of friends catch up. This group of sophomores has been friends since they were in the same suite in Hinton James last year, but now, the group of five is spread among several North Campus dorms.

Jen Rehberg from Middletown, N.J., returns to the table with a wrap, but complains that all of the sour cream is in the folded part. An unfortunate incident results in sour cream being dabbed on several faces.

Michelle Abshire from Selma wants to hear her horoscope for the day, so Liz Templin from Charlotte reads it out loud. Despite the myriad Zodiac signs present, it’s a 6 for everyone today.

Michelle’s boyfriend, Chris O’Connor from Charlotte, has not yet returned to the table, so Liz asks, “Did he have to go kill his chicken nuggets?” What she doesn’t know is that he went to Top of Lenoir for take-out and finally returns with fortune cookies for all. This begins a conversation over the point of fortune cookies.

Susan Boone from Roxboro deftly observes, “It doesn’t make sense to put fortunes in egg drop soup, so they put them in cookies.”

Chris tickles Jen, leading Jen to complain, “Michelle, your boyfriend is groping me!”

Michelle shrugs. “I’m not really concerned,” she says.

Liz smiles and says, “Ah, the depth of lunchtime conversation.”

11:38 a.m.: The consumer goods and games of “The Price is Right” have attracted a tired group to the big-screen television in the basement of the Student Union. One munches on a snack of pretzels, one feverishly attempts to complete calculus homework and one naps with their face smashed up against the cushions of the couch. The only noise is the sound of Rod Roddy, inviting yet another lucky contestant to come on down.

11:53 a.m.: Outside Bingham 103, the members of John Kasson’s History 156 class congregate, waiting for the class before them to exit. The people remaining inside are finishing up an exam, so the newcomers read the newspaper and finish up their lunches. As more class members arrive, two men needle their way through the swarm, one discussing his chronic bone spurs within everyone’s earshot. One stunned student leaves the classroom, remarking to her friend, “I never thought it would be that hard.” More and more people trickle out, but the 12 o’clock class is still unsure. A few brave souls go ahead and charge in, confident that they won’t be admonished, but most hesitate, not knowing the appropriate time to go in.