The Stanford Daily: An Interview with Vienna Teng

Vienna Teng, one of my favourite musicians in the world, is performing at TEDxStanford on Saturday. I got to interview her for The Stanford Daily; the resulting article is here:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/18/vienna-teng-stanford-renaissance-woman/

She's extremely nice, and a great conversationalist to boot. I'm not sure what else to say about it (most of it's in the article, though of course, my editor and I had to cut quite a bit), but I think we had more in common that I thought we would, going into the interview.

Anyhow, I'll be seeing her perform this weekend. She said she'd sign my ukulele -- I'm excited!

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Book Critiqua, and the Universe at Large

My latest column is up! You can find it at: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/03/09/book-critiqua-space-chronicles/

I'd never read anything of Tyson's before this one, but Space Chronicles makes me want to check out some of his other works. His writing reminds me a little of Freeman J. Dyson's books -- an old favorite when it comes to theoretical physics.

On a related note, here's a video that Lucas sent me. It's Tyson talking about the beauty of the universe, the "we are all stardust" sentiment. (He says it more poetically than I do.) People who don't think that atheists can find meaning in life should watch this.

The Stanford Daily: Ann Patchett at Stanford

Ann Patchett came to lecture on campus last week. She's one of my favorite living authors (I definitely had a geek-out moment when she was signing my books!), and she's also a wonderful speaker. Anyhow, I got to cover her lecture for my column:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/02/03/book-critiqua-ann-patchett/

Not only is she a bestselling author, she's also an indie bookstore owner; the write-up in The New York Times is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us/ann-patchett-bucks-bookstore-tide-opening-her-own.html?ref=books

I especially loved her line, from her talk, about how her bookstore was "her gift to the city she loves" (Parnassus Books, in Nashville).

Page One, a Documentary

I attended an on-campus screening of the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times (co-sponsored by The Stanford Daily and the communications department, I think) today. It was, I believe, showing at a number of smaller theatres over the summer, as well as at Sundance. I enjoyed it -- it was at once realistic and optimistic, and quite well-made, besides.

The heavy focus on the advent of citizen journalism and the much-hyped "death of (print) newspapers" mirrors the self-publishing and e-book issues in book publishing today -- something that I know better than I do than the news industry. In both cases, it's a matter of negotiating relatively peaceful change, especially where technology is concerned, under threat of obsolescence. News media, methinks, is less hidebound than book publishing in that regard.

It was interesting to note that much of the citizen journalism going on today is responsive and aggregative -- that is, bloggers and websites responding to reporting by traditional media outlets, and aggregating material from professional news media. Citizen journalism is just not sufficiently reliable and or comprehensive, at least not yet -- and I'm not convinced that it will ever be, because consistent, good, and consistently good journalism requires infrastructure (which in turn requires the sort of resources that civilian journalists can rarely access) and training (which is usually acquired at journalism school and/or through working in the field, under the guidance of more experienced journalists). Certainly, there are isolated incidences in which passersby on the ground are first to gain access to material simply because the spontaneity of some news precludes real-time coverage. But on the whole, I think the documentary has proven that professional journalism is not dead.

The Stanford Daily: Gaiman and Palmer in SF

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer performed a show in San Francisco last week, and I covered it for The Daily (pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, above):

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/11/04/gaiman-and-palmer-read-rock-and-talk/

It was awesome. I want a ukulele. 

Book Critiqua @ The Stanford Daily

I have a column this volume (read that aloud) in Intermission (arts section of The Stanford Daily). It's called "Book Critiqua" -- for those of you who aren't typography geeks, it's a play on the font "Book Antiqua." Anyhow, my inaugural column came out today, featuring Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). I attended his talk in San Jose, but the even cooler part was, I got to interview him! So here's the article, with a bunch of lovely soundbites:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/a-not-so-unfortunate-visit-from-lemony-snicket

He's wonderful in person, and a great conversationalist. And not actually really creepy or anything like that, in case you were wondering.

The Stanford Daily: A Dance with Dragons

The review, as promised:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/07/28/review-a-dance-with-dragons/

As you can tell, I thought it was wonderful. I've been a fan of Martin's since A Storm of Swords, which was a long time ago. (In other words, being not quite the most objective reviewer, but I expect that critics rarely ever are. That's what makes them interesting to read, half the time.)

Time: A Dance with Dragons!

The long-awaited A Dance with Dragons is out today!

Lev Grossman reviews it for Time, here:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2081774,00.html

I'm really glad to see that it lives up to all the hype. I know a lot of people (myself included) were a bit disappointed with A Feast for Crows, but I think a lot of the problems with it were simply due to its not being a single complete volume unto itself. It and Dance are really two very intertwined halves of the same volume. So this book should make it all better.

I can't wait to start reading it after work! (My own review thereof, for The Stanford Daily, is forthcoming.)

How to Get the Most Out of Your iPhone as a Reporting Tool

I think it was someone at The Stanford Daily who sent me this article:

http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-iphone-as-a-reporting-tool_b3226#more-3226

Having used my iPhone in the field, I can attest to its journalistic value. I've recorded interviews, taken bunches of still photographs (alas, no video, seeing as I have an older model), and even used it in lieu of pen and paper (though I still prefer paper to the iPhone notepad). It's probably even more of a game-changer for those journalists who do more live (or somewhat-live) reporting; a lot of my articles are book reviews and such.

I'm not sure if this matters to anyone who isn't a journalist, but I thought there might be interest.

The Stanford Daily: Essential Summer Reading

My last article of the year:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/06/02/essential-summer-reading/

These are pretty much all on my to read or reread list. I'm especially looking forward to "A Dance with Dragons" and "On China," the former because I've been waiting for it since high school (oh, GRRM, please don't do this to us again!), and the latter because I'm taking a class on modern China this quarter.

Anyhow, if you were looking for things to do this summer (maybe on your commute to and from work?), check out the above.

The Stanford Daily: Shakespeare (Kind of) in the Park

An article I wrote (I think it's my first lead story!) that runs today:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/05/13/shakespeare-kind-of-in-the-park

As You Like It is really funny (though I'll admit that I often find Shakespearean humor more amusing than I do contemporary humor), and the Stanford Shakespeare Company does it quite well. You can see the review for details, but suffice to say that I'd gladly see it again. If you're on campus, go see it! Tickets: http://shakespeare.stanford.edu.

(I also realize that there's a bit of a skewed representation of my journalism on the blog. I'm predominately a book critic, but it seems like everything I plug here is about drama. I'll try to remember to post more of my book reviews!)

Edit: If you're interested in books, or just journalist-y things that I write, there's now a new button in the sidebar. Someone told me it would be a good idea, but I forget who it was, so thanks!

The Stanford Daily: StanShakes Triumphs with "Julius Caesar"

An article I wrote last week:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/02/25/stanshakes-triumphs-with-julius-caesar/

Julius Caesar is amazing -- I went through several phases of "favorite Shakespeare play" and it's my most recent favorite. I loved A Midsummer Night's Dream in elementary and early middle school -- I thought it was absolutely hysterical. It was also the time, at least in elementary, when kids were obsessed with the notion that the other gender had "cooties". Go figure. Then, in middle school, I really liked Hamlet. I think it might have been the brooding, misunderstood, woe-is-me element of it; most teenagers angst and have persecution complexes and think their parental figures don't understand them (I wasn't so far removed from that myself; I merely had... different ways of expressing it). And then, in early high school, I started taking Latin again, and rediscovered a love of Roman history and political structures. Hence the especial fondness for Julius Caesar. Somewhere in there, I briefly liked Macbeth (oops, sorry, I mean "that Scottish play"), but my tenth grade English teacher sort of ruined it for me. I was, apparently, reading it too much in historical context, rather than as pure literature. But that's another story.

Desk Editorship at The Stanford Daily

So. I just became the desk editor of the arts section (known as "Intermission") of my school paper -- I start next week! -- and because it's online, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing what I'm going to be editing. To wit:

The Stanford Daily: http://www.stanforddaily.com
Intermission: http://www.stanforddaily.com/category/intermission

I've been writing for Intermission these past few years, and a few of you have expressed an interest, at some point or other, in reading what I write. A selection of my articles may be found on my author page (they're mostly about books; no surprise there): http://www.stanforddaily.com/author/sarahguan

Anyhow. Just thought my readers might like to take a gander.