YouSaid · the spoken record

Margalit Fox

lines on the record: 56
first: 2016-08-24
most recent: 2016-08-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Exactly. So the lead of our obit, we say Fred W. McDara, a self described square, who was a longtime photographer for the village voice, documented the unwashed exploits of the beat generation and as an enterprising freelance talents agent rented out members of that generation, washed or unwashed, too wide eyed suburban society gatherings, died, etc, etc. So that was great fun.”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We found that not only did he document the beat generation, but he enterprisingly started a business called Rent a Beatnick for these society matrons who wanted to be Ocorant, wanted to have a beatnick play the bongos or read poetry at their fancy parties in Scarsdale but didn't quite know how to go about it.”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's one I brought one with me. There was a very good photographer who worked for the Village Voice for many years, a man named Fred McDarrow, and he died in two thousand seven. Now his work as a photographer for the Voice Alone would have been more than enough to get him a news obit in our pages, which it did. He took, for instance, a very famous photo of Bob Dylan, a young Bob Dylan all in black in Sheridan Square Park in New York facing the camera and saluting, and that photo has been everywhere. That was taken by our guy, Fred McDarrow. And because of when he worked in the 50s and 60s, he was famous for documenting photographically the beat generation. To my surprise and delight when I started pulling old clippings and researching the obituary”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Flamingo of stove stopped stuffing. Now about those people, although clearly they did something that changed the culture was transformative in some way, we reporters are almost always going in cold. We've very often never heard the name, much less anything about what this person did, and so for that, of course, we're obliged to rely to an extent with appropriate double checking and backstopping on family knowledge because their knowledge is better and far, far longer duration than ours.”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, remember that we, the reporter, are starting almost always from an agnostic state of There are essentially two categories of obituaries that the Times does, and one are the Barquis names, the presidents, the kings, the queens, the captains of industry, old time Hollywood film stars, and so on, people who are in the history books, people whom everyone has heard of. Their lives are well documented, and so there are rarely any surprises either for the family or for the reporter working on the story. On the other hand, there is this whole other category of people whom I call history's backstage players, these unsung men and women who are not household names, but who because they invented something, had an idea, wrote something, you know, way back perhaps in the nineteen forties, they put a wrinkle in the social fabric and changed the world I've done, for instance, the inventor of the Frisbee, the inventor of Etrusketch, the inventor of the plastic lawn floor.”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, of course those closest to them are the ones by definition who know them best, and so forth various reasons, including just one of basic reporting smarts, we are obliged to spend time on the phone with families and close friends where there are such people to be had.”
2016-08-24 · Conversations with Tyler · Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source