It’s been nine months since the first ReadRollShow video appeared: a nearly 14-minute, long-form (for us) interview with Joshua Ferris on Vimeo. Topics ranged from Cervantes to coworkers who announce their bowel movements. An auspicious start for the program, no?
Nine months, a healthy gestation. And now: life beyond the womb! Expect lots of changes from ReadRollShow in 2011. All for the good, we swear! In time we think you’ll even trust us without that baby gate at the top of the stairwell.
One note about our year-end rankings: Mr. Ferris likely would have edged out Sam Lipsyte for the #5 spot if only we hadn’t divided the aforementioned long clip into four shorter ones for YouTube; cumulatively, Ferris garnered more than enough views — almost enough to catch Sloane Crosley at #4. So we’re giving him a Most-Watched honorable mention. (Okay, we just like Ferris a lot. We’re not too proud to admit it.) [click to comment]
“A wave might seem to be a simple thing, but in fact it’s the most complicated form in nature,” Susan Casey writes.
In The Wave, the author recounts an experience at a symposium in Maui, after a session about storm surge behavior, when she encountered two scientists in the lobby.
At the break I went outside, where I ran into Dave Levinson and John Marra, another scientist…. When Levinson introduced me and described my project, Marra had a question. “Those guys who want to launch their melons off a hundred-foot wave,” he said, “are they mentally ill?”
“Does that mean you think it can’t be done?” I asked.
“I don’t know the phase speed of a hundred-foot wave,” he said, turning serious in an instant and citing advanced math theory about breaking waves. “I’d have to actually calculate the celerity. I don’t see why not, I guess—if you’re moving fast enough. But is it human nature to want to do that?”
I defended the tow surfers’ sanity for a few moments, then steered the subject to climate change….”
I asked Casey, “How did you defend the tow surfers? What did you tell the scientists?” [click to comment]
In The Wave, Susan Casey sets out to understand giant waves through the eyes of people who know them best: mariners, scientists, and tow surfers.
“Her writing on wave forces and maritime disasters is masterful,” says Outside magazine. And Entertainment Weekly (among many others) agrees: The Wave “delivers a thrill so intense you may never get in a boat again.”
Laird Hamilton helped to invent tow surfing, where a jet ski, driven by a partner, tows the surfer to the start, enabling them to catch waves far bigger and faster than any they could catch by hand-paddling. Laird’s feats in the water are the stuff of legend. But then one event during Casey’s research surpassed all others. [click to comment]
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Wordstock is a year-round Oregon nonprofit that works to promote writing in the classroom. And once a year, the Wordstock Festival takes over Portland.
Wordstock is a year-round Oregon nonprofit that works to promote writing in the classroom. And once a year, the 