Sorry to have made it seem that I once again abandoned this blog. After I left Montana, I was on the road for 37-38 days (depending on how you add it up), with a lot of stops along the way. I’m back in D.C. now.

While criss-crossing America, I also went back to my job as TV critic at The Washington Post, filing a heap of TV reviews from hither and yon, mostly yon.

I’m getting ready to authorize a redesign of HankStuever.com, which will include (I hope) a place for visitors to catch up on my latest reviews. There is, of course, already an easy way to do that, on my bio/archive page at the Post. Click here. You can read recent reviews of “The Americans,” the end of “30 Rock,” “House of Cards,” the inauguration, the Golden Globes, “The Following,” “Enlightened” and more …

Coming soon: Random thoughts from the road trip and a BIG book giveaway. Don’t feel neglected.

Monica Hesse and Dan Zak’s 2013 edition of The Washington Post’s annual List is out, and it’s a good one.

This is the 35th year that the Style section has put out an “in/out” List, a tradition begun by Nina Hyde and Jura Koncius in 1978. It was my great pleasure (and huge headache) to pen The List in 2000 and then from 2003-2009. It is my greater pleasure that Dan and Monica are now in charge of doing it. Like anything worthwhile, it’s much harder than it looks.

And now, The List: A Mockumentary, which not only explains the storied tradition of this New Year’s feature, it also gives you a chance to bask in the Dan-ness and Monica-ness of it all. (Unfortunate Skype cameo by yours truly halfway in …)

Cheers, everyone. Here’s to 2013. My goal for this year is to get everyone to call it TWENTY THIRTEEN instead of the dopey two-thousand-thirteen.

On Monday, we finished up critiquing the Nov. 7 scene stories. For my general diagnoses of these stories as a whole, please see the Nov. 19 recap. Meanwhile, here are excerpts from the three stories that I liked best, and why. (I haven’t fixed anything — the copy you’ll read here is exactly as it was filed to me.)

First up is Allison Bye’s report on the ol’ drag show at the Broadway Inn motel’s cocktail lounge. For those of you reading these blog posts far from Montana, there is little in the way of gay social/cultural life here, even in enlightened Missoula, which doesn’t even have a gay bar — at all. (Some other things I think Missoula needs, if anyone’s feeling entrepreneurial: a full-service car wash, a Sonic drive-in, and a Red Lobster — but I digress.)

Allison visited with the folks who oversee the royal court of Montana’s drag scene and did a great job of weaving their personal stories in with the live action on the stage. She balanced detail with character (and found a balance between drag personas and the men under the makeup) and kept the momentum and mood going in a tight structure. Here’s some:

“What kind of originally drew me to (drag) was the political aspect of it and the historical aspect,” Crismore said. “All of the things that it accomplished for the queer community in our history. The first people to really raise money for HIV research and to buy food for HIV-positive people, most of them were drag queens.” The International Court System was started in the ‘60s by Mama Jose, a drag queen in San Francisco, Crismore continued. During a time when sodomy laws were still enforced and it was illegal to be gay, she started doing shows and using the tips to bail out people who had been arrested that night under sodomy laws.

Dynamite Shagwell, dressed in a green halter-top dress and earrings, now takes the stage. Dynamite is in a wheelchair, but she still moves around the dance floor gracefully, and unlike her lip-synching counterparts, belts out Fun.’s “Some Nights” into a microphone. Dollar bills begin piling up on her lap.

“Thank you!” she yells into the microphone to the loudest cheers yet from the bar.

“I love that bitch!” Kiara Drake says as she walks her metallic platform boots out onto the floor again. Spritzer lounges in a suit behind the emcee table, a PBR in hand. At this time, Drake informs the audience it is time for an attitude check.

“Can I get an attitude check?” she yells, then points her microphone at the rest of the bar.

“Fuck you, bitch!” the bar roars back, which is, in fact, the correct response.

* * *

Tom Holm drove 90 miles west to spend a day in the life of the iconic 50,000 Silver Dollar, a tourist-tempting pit stop near the Idaho state line on I-90: it’s got gas, booze, and what we devoted Western road-trippers politely refer to as curios. What this story may lack in technical and structural finesse, it makes up for in vibe and a real sense of being there. If I was the editor on this piece, I’d be delighted to whup it into shape — all the good stuff is here, thanks to Tom. The tone of the piece matches the feel of the place — or, at least, I feel like it took me there. (I will know for sure in about 3-1/2 weeks, when I pack up the car and head west for the holidays and the looong way home via California, and stop to see the 50,000 Silver Dollar for myself.) Take it away, Tom:

Rex Lincoln the owner of the bar, motel, gas station combo that is the 50,000 Silver Dollar complex, hates it when you ask about the swords.

“You heard it from the old fuck,” he said.

He chain-smokes cigarettes, alternating between Marlboro reds and Marlboro lights on the West corner of the bar from about eight to nine-thirty.  Lincoln is a tall, lurching old man with Larry King suspenders and matching pointy shoulders.

“I own the place so I can smoke where I want,” he said.

And has done so for over 50 years.  Lincoln inherited the bar when the original proprietor and Rex’s father, Gerry Lincoln’s health began to fail.  Rex had recently graduated from Montana State University—the original name for the Missoula College—with a business degree and decided to take over.  He married his wife the same year and has seen both the successes and failures of owning the bar.

“We do not really get regular customers,” he said between spitting up a little blood into his hanky. “Regular is a yearly customer from Seattle or Missoula.”

* * *

Now, let me address one thing. You might notice that my three favorite stories have language in them (and scenes) that would give most editors carpal-tunnel from hitting the delete key so much, and certainly wouldn’t see print in a so-called “family” newspaper. I want to say that I didn’t favor these stories only because of their shock value and f-bombs. I liked them because they are the most effectively immersive. The writers took me there with their words and reporting. They didn’t blanch at the exotic or gross. Their details didn’t confuse me. They stepped back and gave the scene context. I’d be just as happy to read this kind of piece on a church service or a grade-school Thanksgiving play.

But it didn’t work out that way this time. We went for the naughty.

Eben Keller made one of my dreams for this class come true: He covered a raucous, blow-out party at someone’s house — some dude’s 24th birthday, but really just an excuse for everyone involved (except Eben!) to get shitfaced. I’ve been begging the class — someone, anyone, everyone — to do this story from day one: After all, what is more quintessentially college than the house party on the edge of a nervous breakdown? Although Eben is his own harshest critic, you can tell that he took down every detail — yes, even the name of the dog and the brand of the beer, as writing coaches everywhere have encouraged reporters to do. Behold, the piss mattress:

The ceiling tiles were stained and sagging, the furniture was nothing worth protecting, shoes were mandatory, and the bathroom was a mattress in the backyard. A “piss mattress,” which still got slept on from time to time.

Five stringed instruments— a banjo, a fiddle, two acoustic guitars and a mandolin— and a single snare drum, were tucked into the corner of the main room, and sat for no more than 15 minutes at a time before being played.

Each time an announcement would be made to the guests that it was time to gather around and enjoy the show.

“If you love music then get in here and shut the fuck up!” shouted a dyed-red haired, freshly tattooed patron from the top of a coffee table.

The band, a country folk punk rock group called “Bird’s Mile Home” played on more than three occasions during the night, separated by the lead singer, 25-year-old Phillip Lear, playing solo or with anybody in the house willing to pick up a guitar and sing along.

A dildo was thrown around and shoved in the face of unsuspecting party-goers. A girl put it in her pants and pulled it out through the zipper, and Neumayer promptly got on his knees and sucked it.

Fast-forwarding to the story’s end. Note how Eben chose to a morning-after epilogue and house lore as the final image…

You can drink until sunrise, drink until your sober, or drink until dialysis, but nothing will ever keep that party from coming to an end.

Those who survived the night woke up to the house in disarray. One of the house-mates woke up and continued drinking before heading to work at the supermarket two blocks away. The stale smell of cigarettes and spilled wine has soaked into every fiber of the already stained, clumpy carpet.

The home is starting to show it’s age after all these years. The water-soaked swollen ceiling in the living room collapsed two weeks after Neumayer’s birthday.

Living next door to the run-down remnant of 5 decades of wild parties, is a supposedly schizophrenic/bi-polar/manic neighbor, who has called the police to complain more times than anyone can count.

After one particularly long night of drinking and playing guitar on the porch, the cops were called again, which forced all porch related conversations indoors.

Once the cops left, however, the neighbor came out of her house and pinned a note on the front door, which still floats around the house to this day, and is responsible for how the house got its name.

“The things I hear coming from your porch are ugly and vulgar and make me sad,” read the note.

* * *

This story and another one from the class (about a karaoke night) got a discussion going:

When should a reporter on assignment — especially about nightlife — join in and have a drink? When should reporters imbibe with sources? Should they ever?

The typical j-school answer is: It depends. I’ve reported stories before where most everyone was drinking heavily and I’m glad that I was NOT. Partly because I want to do my best work. Partly because I don’t want the fact that “the reporter was drinking, too!” to become part of the criticism or complaints (if there are any) after the story runs. With booze (and anything stronger), I think it’s best to avoid it, even when the assignment is a party. Sometimes your subject will insist. Maybe you don’t drink. Maybe you’re in recovery. Maybe you just want to maintain that journalistic line that separates them from you. There are noble reasons not to — the best of which is that you want all your senses about you, sober and sharp. (I realize that j-schools and creative nonfiction departments have always been filled with young men who think they’re the next Hunter S. Thompson. Let me assure you that the world is not asking for it to be you.)

There are also good — sometimes great — reasons to take a (ONE!) drink. It’s almost always about mood and tone. Accepting the offer of a drink sends a subliminal signal of sharing. Most good journalism is on some level and act of sharing — information, details, opinions, secrets. Booze is a social lubricant.

Our friend Gene Weingarten set of a dither at a nonfiction writers’ conference a while back when he described one such situation, only it involved pot. You can read the ethical kerfuffle here.

I spent the first decade of my reporting career convinced that I should never, ever drink while reporting on the scene. (Or while reporting from the newsroom, but company policy made that clear.) There is a whole lot of misplaced nostalgia about journalists and drinking. It’s mostly bullshit.

What about food? Here I suddenly do a 180. I think reporters should always eat what’s offered to them, even if it might be poisoned. You are tasting for ingredient. You are breaking bread with people you don’t know. You are being polite. Food engenders conversation — and takes you into kitchens, where people are themselves. I realize the same argument can be made about bars, but you can get into a bar and do the job on strictly club sodas and cranberry juice. But if you refuse someone’s homemade lasagna, Christmas bizcochitos or backyard barbecue then you have TOTALLY BLOWN IT.

So, after basically saying “Don’t drink while reporting, kids,” I remembered the one Style assignment every year where I drank as much as I liked and came to depend on the hangover as inspiration for the story that I co-wrote the morning after: When Bill Booth (and later Amy Argetsinger) and I teamed up to cover Vanity Fair’s after-party on Oscar nights. To every rule, a glaring exception:

And this of course sends our class off on a celebrity tangent, wherein Gran’pa Hank talks about all the mooooovie stars he “met” back in the day. (The photo above is from VF’s 2009 party. It is the creepiest picture of me ever.)

Enough about me!

No, wait — MORE about me!

For Wednesday, Nov. 28: Your reading assignment is to read three stories, all by meeeeeeee. Like your final, they are mainly scene stories, but they have deeper characterizations and step-backs. One of them might be a profile. One of them might be about a place. They are basically hybrid feature stories with essay-like qualities.

I didn’t pick them because I want to go out on an ego trip. I picked them because they are (possibly) flawed or were filed in situations where I had to zig when I thought I might zag; or the deadline was too tight, or (in one case) not tight enough. Also, they are each within the target word-count zone of your final assignment (2,000 words). I’m using my own stuff this time so that we can hear from the author directly — what worked, what didn’t, why is this story written the way it is? etc. What I want you to do is mark them up and bring questions. Please read:

• “The 24-Karat Party,” a report from a “gold party” in the suburbs, just as the economy was falling apart. (The Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2008)

• “Pilgrims’ Pit Stop,” a story about Maryland House, a popular I-95 rest stop, written and filed on Thanksgiving eve. (The Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2002) This ancient story is behind an archive paywall. Students have printouts.

• “Host with the Most: The Cult of Bob Barker,” a scene piece/mini-profile of the legendary “Price is Right” host as he neared his retirement at 83. (The Washington Post, May 9, 2007)

We’ll spend half the class discussing technique. We’ll spend the other half talking about YOUR STORIES. Bring what you have — ideas, worries, plans, early drafts. You have eight days until it’s due.

Sorry for the delay in recapping. You can tell that the semester has reached the frenzy point here at the School of Journalism. My crew in the Pollner seminar (aka this class) is spread so thin that you can hear the knives clanking in their mayonnaise jars; just being around them makes me vicariously exhausted. I remember this part of college quite well: all the term papers coming due at once, the looming finals, the registration (and graduation) deadlines for next semester, and the inescapable realization that the student newspaper still has to come out. A good number of my students went to Helena on Tuesday to cover election night for their advanced reporting classes, but managed to return, bleary-eyed, in time for our Wednesday Skype session with the multi-Pulitzered Gene Weingarten. (Depicted above, as he is every Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine, by illustrator Eric Shansby.)

On Monday (the 5th), we had discussed seven stories in Gene’s book, The Fiddler in the Subway, and once again, it turns out that a Weingarten story will start about 100 different discussions about 100 different things — some of them related to the topic, many of them tangential. That’s why his Washington Post online chat has evolved into a free-associative conversation among like-minded strangers/readers about the many ways that the human condition is both funny and horrifying.

I was happy to let the class conversation spin out too, so long as we kept noticing how damn entertaining (and gripping) Gene’s feature stories are. Remember: They all ran in a newspaper. Stories like this can and should run alongside the day’s news, in print and online. If you ghettoize (or elevate) great feature writing to some special twee place on the web or in heavy-paper-stock journals, a la McSweeney’s, you significantly lessen their power to surprise. You also reduce the potential audience.

Talking to Gene in person (or as close as we can get — Skype really is amazing, when the signal is strong) can give readers a whole new insight into why his stories are the way they are, and why they are so good.

Our one-hour conversation addressed some of the stories we read from The Fiddler in the Subway — especially “The Great Zucchini,” “The Armpit of America,” “Doonesbury’s War,” and “Tears for Audrey.” (Shockingly, we never even got to talk about “The Fiddler in the Subway,” probably Gene’s best-known piece, in which he installed master violinist Joshua Bell in the Washington, D.C., subway system as a busker, to see if anyone would notice greatness in their hectic midst.)

The real takeaway from Gene’s work — the lesson I’ve always taken away, anyhow, from reading him and knowing him — is the sense of adventure or quest that defines almost all of his stories, whether they are humorous or tragic. They’re all trying to answer a question, sometimes not always answerable, but always about the human condition in one way or another: Why does Washington’s most successful children’s entertainer-for-hire have such a disorganized personal life? Why did the Hardy Boys books seem so great to a 12-year-old Gene and yet so awful to a middle-aged Gene, and who wrote those books anyhow? What’s the “worst” town in America, subjectively speaking? What’s up with someone who never votes?

Many of the stories are written and structured as a quest, in such a way that you can see how the reporting went, how the facts were discovered, how the story is built. It’s like visiting a cathedral that is still surrounded by the scaffolding.

We talked to Gene about reporting and structure. I noticed — and tried to get him to explain — how easily people tend to let him in, even when he is upfront with them about the sarcasm and humor that may work against their best interests when the story is published. Such as when he calls up a non-voting Michigan man named Ted Prus and asks if he can profile him — a conversation recounted at the top of the story:

“Hi. This is The Washington Post. Are you registered to vote?”

“No.”

“Are you planning on voting?”

“No.”

“We’d like to write a long story about you. Would you be interested? It would make you famous.”

“You mean a famous idiot?”

“Actually, we’re not sure. There’s no guarantee one way or the other.”

“Sounds good.”

A similar exchange happens (and is recounted in the story) with Sharlene “Shar” Peterson of the Battle Mountain, Nev., Chamber of Commerce before Gene embarks on a 2001 story pronouncing the little town to be “the armpit of America”:

She told me a little about the town, and then I told her what I was proposing to do.

She laughed, then didn’t say much of anything for a bit.

The Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce was thinking.

Shar?

“Well, I mean, who wants to be called an armpit? But, you know …”

I sensed where she was going. I wanted to kiss her.

” … This could be an asset. We’re just a dying, ugly little mining town without a real identity. It could be an opportunity.”

Is this a great country or what?

“Listen,” Shar said, a trace of concern creeping into her voice. “I have to tell you we now have a Super 8 Motel and a McDonald’s. I hope that doesn’t knock us out of the running.”

How does Gene do this? He is upfront with people right away, perhaps more than most reporters are. Why do people still say okay to it? Many of us are already socially awkward about calling people up and asking for permission to hang out, take notes and publish intimate details. Gene says he is too, but that he’s pretty much always told all his subjects, right away, that if they let him write about them, three things will happen when the story is published and they first read it: 1., They will feel like it is fair. (If nothing else, it’s fair — people get their say and are quoted accurately and attempts have been made to depict the situations from all sides; complexities have not been sanded down into oversimplified descriptions, etc.)

2., They will end up liking about 3/4 of it.

And 3., They will be upset — possibly very upset — by 1/4 of it.

He tells them this at the beginning. He also follows up with them after the story runs to see what their reaction was; even if it they’re furious at him, he wants to know.

Gene and I both agree that your allegiance is to the truest possible story you can tell, even if it’s painful for the subject. I’m more of the Joan Didion “writers-are-always-selling-somebody-out” type. I do a lot of what Gene does at the end of the process, in my fact-checking and farewell phase, instead of the beginning; but I do agree that sources need to know what they’re getting into at the beginning, how deep things will get, and they also need to be reminded of the journalistic process while the reporting is going on.

The most important thing is that you have to sweat this out every time. You have to wake up at night and fret about the struggle between staying true to the story and potentially hurting some feelings. I think the balance we’re all looking for exists in those anxiety attacks.

Gene says he saves the hardest questions — the most sensitive, painful things — for last. Smart man.

• • •

There is NO CLASS on MONDAY, NOV. 12 (Veterans Day).

For Wednesday, Nov. 14: Our time is running short — only six classes left. We will continue brainstorming and nailing down ideas for the long(ish) narrative feature story, which is due Dec. 3. I’m going to ease up on the readings for the duration of the semester. (There are many fantastic pieces I’d assign if we had another semester to keep going, but I want us to get as much time as possible to discuss, troubleshoot and pre-edit the students’ features.) I have assigned one reading for Wednesday: “Can You Say Hero?” Tom Junod’s classic Esquire profile of (Mister) Fred Rogers in 1998. Read it, mark it up, and come ready to talk about it.

And don’t forget: Your second review (of a film, album, live performance, video game or book, etc.) is due by Nov. 26. That’s most of you. The last of the TV recappers are finishing up in the next week.

PS: Everyone successfully filed their scene stories — some later than others, but all got it in by late Wednesday night, so thanks very much. I’ll bring printouts for you on Nov. 14 and we’ll do our roundtable critique on the 19th.

Busy class on Wednesday. We finished up critiquing the personal essay riffs: Dustin on “Lost”; Cody on “The Gong Show” reruns; Ashley on “Supernatural” and boy bands; Allison on “The Office’s” Jim & Pam romance; and Carli on loving the ’80s, even though she missed the ’80s entirely. Good discussions.

Then we talked about progress (frustrations, too) on scene stories. Sounds mostly good; some are still casting about for the right scene to go cover. Not quite time to panic yet — still about 10 days to figure it out, report it out, and file by Nov. 7. Somehow we still managed to talk for half an hour about who/what/where/when/why/how and pitch some more ideas. Come by and see me if you’re having problems.

That didn’t leave us nearly enough time to discuss David Finkel’s classic work of pop-culture journalism from a 1994 issue of the Washington Post Magazine, called “Group Portrait with Television.”

This 5,800-word piece originated with an urge (by Finkel, who pitched it to his editor) to write about a family’s relationship to its TV set — a family that would represent, in demographics and total hours spent watching, the average Nielsen household. The idea changed and grew from there. This is one of those times that Finkel’s preference to write about people in the “middle” — that is, people who represent the everyday, the average, the statistical mean, and NOT the extremes on either end — did not come to pass. Instead he found and wrote about the Delmars: Steve and Bonnie and their children, Ashley and Steven, and their unapologetic addiction to TV. In the piece we follow them through some typical days spent watching a lot of TV, always on, in practically every room of the house. (The children were 6 and almost-8 at the time; they are older now than today’s college seniors.)

The Delmars were unusually candid, quotable and thoughtful, but Finkel is also unusually adept at getting people to open up and share their lives with him.

The story hit like a bomb when it ran — in the era before online comments and retweets. Anonymous rage back then was still old-fashioned; some people called the Delmars’ house and told Bonnie she was an unfit mother.

Some things that came up in class discussion:

How to spend enough time with people to get this level of narrative, and how do you know when plenty is enough?

How did Finkel find them? (Hard work and near-exasperation, it turns out — no surprise there.)

How does he work in the feelings of people who think excessive TV is harmful? (Look for that section.)

Does Bonnie’s life story come in too late? (And did anybody in the class bother to look up Red Skelton? No.)

Where are they now? (Brooks Johnson did what I did — tried to find the Delmars online, via Google searches and Facebook, etc.)

And, something to really think about: What would this story look like if you wrote it now, almost 19 years later? (It would be “Group Portrait with SCREENS.” Phones, tablets, laptops and, maybe for Dad, the TV. If anyone’s game to try a sequel-like homage for their long narrative — due Dec. 3 — go ahead and start looking for a family now!)

I feel like we have a little more to discuss about how this story works as a narrative and what we can learn from how it’s structured. We spent too much time talking about watching television and not enough time talking about the craft of long-form journalism. So bring it back and we’ll talk more Monday, Oct. 29.

Also: No reading assignments for Monday.

But it’s never too early to start reading the assigned chapters from Gene Weingarten’s The Fiddler in the Subway, for our class discussions on Nov. 5 and Nov. 7. These chapters are:

Introduction; The Great Zucchini; The Ghost of the Hardy Boys; The Armpit of America; Tears for Audrey; Doonesbury’s War; None of the Above; and The Fiddler in the Subway.

AND, it seems many of you will be reporting your scene stories this weekend, so get to it.

Although I didn’t plan it this way, it worked out nicely that Monday’s critique session in class was the day Alice Thorpe came to visit Journalism 494. Alice is the mother of Anthony Pollner, the Montana alum in whose memory all of this happens. She came from New York for her annual trip to visit the J-school, the students, and hear the Pollner professor’s big lecture. We were delighted to see her.

Oh, that’s my cue. I did indeed give my lecture Monday night, called “Liner Notes for the End of the World: My Adventures Covering American Pop Culture.” Considering that there was also the presidential debate, Game 7 of the baseball playoffs, and Monday Night Football on TV, I thought we got a nice crowd. And people laughed pretty much where I hoped they would.

This morning, I wound up as the skybox/refer on the front page of the Kaimin. (Slightly doctored, above.)

We sent Alice on her way with a sheaf of the class’s personal essays, which she said she was excited to read.

Overall, I thought the personal essays turned out to be a useful exercise. Every one of them could have used one more pass for polish and through-line theme (and some more copyediting), but overall, the class really brought it, with some diverse and surprising pieces.

Standouts for me included Donelle Weston’s moving essay about how “Avatar” came into her life at just the right time. Heather Jurva wrote a nice one about (of all things) that David Bowie move, “Labyrinth.” Neil Sauer turned in a vivid one about his nerdy “World of Warcraft” days. Billie Loewen examined her own fixation for “28 Days Later” and how she and her boyfriend are prepping for an inevitable apocalyptic scenario. Tom Holm wrote a delightfully weird remembrance of seeing “Idle Hands” in his bedroom with his first girlfriend, while another couple got busy on the bed behind them. And we were all taken with Eben Keller’s essay about “Calvin & Hobbes.”

Other subjects? “The O.C.’s” Seth Cohen; two different takes on the impact of “Lost”; Cody Blum was watching “The Gong Show” in reruns with his family a whole eon after it was first on; Carli Krueger wishes she’d experienced the ’80s firsthand, instead of only through John Cusack and John Hughes. (Carli, I wish I could say you didn’t miss anything, but I can’t — the ’80s were amazing.) We also got good pieces on “Pocahontas,” Jim and Pam, March Madness brackets, “Supernatural,” “Swingers” and, last but not least, the self-revealing horror of having someone shuffle through your iPod when it contains every song you’ve bought since junior high.

The point of all this is not merely to navel-gaze. People in touch with how pop-culture affected them can become better writers about how pop-culture affects all of us.

For Wednesday, Oct. 24: We have a few essays left to critique (Carli, Cody, Dustin, Ashley, Allison) and we’ll check in on how the scene stories are progressing.

But we have no time to waste and we’ve got to move on to studying longform narratives about popular culture. The reading assignment is just about the best example ever, by an actual genius: David Finkel’s 1994 story “Group Portrait with Television,” from the Washington Post Magazine, about a suburban family, the Delmars, with more TVs in the house than people. Read it, mark it up and bring questions.

Tampa Bay Times

We’re a month into the semester, the pace is quickening, and the Pollner class is turning into a bit of a juggling lesson. On Wednesday, we’re going to be group-critiquing the reported essays. (Professor Stuever is also grappling with something he hasn’t thought one bit about since he left college: grades. How to grade? There’s a horrible tug between needing to be tough and wanting to be kind. You’d think three years of eviscerating TV shows would lend itself to grading 17 essays. You’d be wrong. I have to factor in hopes and dreams here.)

Anyhoo, next Monday (Oct. 1), we’ll be discussing George Trow’s Within the Context of No Context, as one of about a thousand ways to get into the personal essay assignment, which will come due on Oct. 15.

And also, it’s time to get busy on scene stories, which are due on Nov. 7.

We’re going to be revisiting the mechanics of a good scene-story writing and reporting during the next month, off and on.

A scene story is a quick, highly-narrative feature about an event or a moment, mainly. The whole point is to go and observe very closely, to weed through a day (or night) of experiences and bring it vividly to life for the reader who wouldn’t go (or couldn’t go; or couldn’t get access). Many a writing coach has advised a frozen reporter on deadline to simply imagine telling a friend about what you saw, what you heard, what people ate, what they wore, what was funny about it, what was sad. We are already good at telling one another stories, with instincts for pacing and organizing the information by the best moments and details.

Scene stories blend pure narrative with information. The goal is to engage the reader and let them know what it felt like to be there. This is different than most feature stories (or, shudder, “trend” stories) where the reporter simply gathers quotes (often by phone, or man-on-the-street) on a topic and sums up. Scene stories are alive. They are packed with active verbs and dialogue. In a scene story, dialogue and movement are more important that quote-unquote quotes.

We read three examples and talked about what we liked and didn’t like in each. Michael Kruse went to the muddin’ festival at the Redneck Yacht Club. By the time you’re done reading this piece, you can almost feel the mud on you. Emphasis here is on characters and dialogue. Also notice that we don’t watch from the sidelines only. We get in the trucks, we get close to the strippers, we can hear the music. Details are everything. You have to pack your notebook full of them.

We read Dan Zak on the final on-air hours of the military radio station at an American operating base on the verge of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Notice here how dialogue works as Dan takes down everything said during the military’s “morning zoo” show. Notice how Dan seamlessly weaves in the more standard feature-story stuff. Notice how the radio station works as a metaphor for the American presence in Iraq.

We also read Monica Hesse’s pitch-perfect scene story on Prince Harry’s fast trip to Washington last May.

As we discussed these stories I sort of reversed-outlined each piece, breaking it down to its component parts. Intro, scene-setting, opening scene, nutgraf, further scenes … and then …

What I want you to notice about them is how each of these examples has a “step-back” moment. The step-back is not quite like a nutgraf, which tells you WHAT the story is about and WHY you care. The step-back is a place where we pause the action and zoom out on the frame and write a little bit — a paragraph or two will usually do it — about what this event MEANS, culturally or otherwise. Michael Kruse steps back twice in the muddin’ story to make larger (but not necessarily opinionated) observations about Florida and the redneck ethos. Dan Zak takes a moment to look at the broader influence military radio has had over the decades, including its role in introducing a little boy named Robert Plant to blues singers. (No military radio = no Led Zeppelin?) And Monica Hesse stops here and there to admire and ruminate on the culture’s mancrush on Harry. (This was pre-Las Vegas nude shots, mind you.)

So then, what you all did with your reported essays? That was training for the “step-back” part of your scene story.

More later.

Call the midwife! I’ve once again assisted in the birth of another FALL TV ISSUE (would you believe my fourth?). You can read every last bit of it online by going here. But if you’re in Washington, won’t you do us the kindness of buying a paper? This year included reviews of all the new scripted shows, as usual– 22 of them, not technically all if you count that new Scott Baio comedy on cable and other morsels buried deep down on the program grids.

I gave A grades to ABC’s “Nashville,” PBS’s “Call the Midwife” and Fox’s “The Mindy Project.” It’s downhill from there, but not as precipitous a plunge as past seasons. Just a lot of average. (I gave F’s to CBS’s “Made in Jersey,” Fox’s “The Mob Doctor” and ABC’s “Malibu Country.”)

Other pieces (by me) include longer reviews/thoughts on “The Mindy Project,” “Revolution” and “The New Normal”/”Partners.” (Gay shows!) I also wrote an essay about pilot episodes and why they suck so much. And I did a sort of charticle-type thing on how all the men on TV shows look alike now. (To me they do. To you, too?)

Emily Yahr, whose contribution to The Washington Post TV department is immeasurable, filed a great piece about the making of the music in “Nashville.” Emily also put together lists of “What else is on?” this fall and has a handy list of all your favorite returning shows and what night they’re coming back. (We also had welcome contributions from other Sunday Style departments — Deal Hunter and Celebritology.)

Allison Ghaman — known to us as Allie G. — designed the issue this year; she’s a dream to work with, unflappable and patient and never once asked for a trim. The cover and inside typography were illustrated by Zack Davenport. Allie also hired Johanna Goodman to do this fun-yet-disturbing illo (above) for the pilots piece. On the web side, Marie Elizabeth Oliver, Maura Judkis and Katie Parker put it all together for a digital audience.

Not that this an acceptance speech, but, oh well — thanks, as always, to my eds: Joe Heim and Lynn Medford. That was a lot of copy to move. And to the hardworking MPEds (the artists formerly known as copy editors) scattered around the floor above ours. I feel like I know you.

And with this, I go on leave to finish out and really enjoy my semester here at the University of Montana. I have a couple of things running between now and the end of the year, but not much. I’ll be back on the job in January.

Let me bring you up to speed and then slow it way down:

I’ve left D.C. behind for the next four months and driven 2,500 miles to beautiful Missoula, Mont., to be the 2012 T. Anthony Pollner Professor at the University of Montana’s excellent School of Journalism. The professorship is the gift of the Pollner family, in memory of their son and brother, who graduated from Montana in 1999 and was — like so many of us — a committed (and talented) journalism junkie. Since 2001, the School of Journalism has invited a professional working journalist/author to come live here each fall and teach a seminar course of his or her own design. The Pollner professor is also on hand to help advise (in a casual way) the staff of the student-run paper, the Kaimin, which publishes four days a week. I’ll also be giving a public lecture on Oct. 22.

Mostly, I suppose, I’m just here to help these students love journalism and writing a little bit more than they already do, offering whatever help to them I can. I know I’m going to learn a lot from them, too.

This also means I’ll be on leave from the Washington Post TV beat for a while — especially once we put the Sept. 16 Sunday Style section to bed, with this year’s fall TV season stuff, which I’m busily writing right now.

I’m here for a change of scenery and pace, too — I firmly believe that all newspaper people need a break now and then from whatever they’re doing. Sometimes that means writing a book. Sometimes a sabbatical. Sometimes nothing. Teaching is something I’ve always wanted to try. And getting to hang out at a student newspaper again is something I literally (yes, I mean literally) have had dreams about over the last 20 years.

Anyhow, more than a few of my friends and colleagues have asked me what I’m teaching and if I’d be willing to share a syllabus or course description. I think you’re onto a fine idea for resurrecting the Tonsil blog. I’ll start posting updates once a week (or so) about what the class has been reading, talking about, and writing. I can’t turn it into a correspondence course, obviously, but I’m happy to share a glimpse.

The course, Journalism 494, is called POPULAR CULTURE JOURNALISM.

We had our first class today — 17 students and me. It’s a hybrid of a feature writing class, a semiotics class and a creative non-fiction class. Here is the course description from my syllabus:

Except for those who choose to live deliberately off the grid (hermits, dharma bums, and assorted woo-woos), Americans are immersed 24/7 in popular culture. That includes highbrow, lowbrow and no-brow – ballet to crunk, Shakespeare to reality TV, YouTube humiliations to video game annihilations. Even our everyday objects come freighted with deeper pop-cultural meaning and value: iPhones, red Solo cups, plastic patio chairs, Yankee candles, Oakley sunglasses, the ingeniousness of a taco shell built from Doritos. Everyone instantly understands the resonance of a madman opening fire in a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Everyone, at one point or another, obsesses on some piece of popular culture. We’ve all dreamed of being a movie star and some of us secretly still do. This is a class about all that.

Good journalism is a significant part of the pop-culture dialogue. In this class, we will explore some of the classic forms of good feature/entertainment writing: the reported essay, the deep narrative profile, the scene story, the cultural riff, and strong criticism/reviews. In readings and writing assignments, our work and discussions will also focus on the role that pop-culture journalism will have in the constantly changing media landscape.

During the semester, the students will be filing the following assignments:

• A reported essay about an object, a personality type or some other icon and what it means. 1,000-1,300 words. (I’ve nicknamed this assignment “The Thing Itself.”) September.

• Criticisms (2 reviews of 1,000 words each; or 5 consecutive episode recaps of a TV series, approx. 400 words each) September-November.

• A personal essay on a pop-culture subject, 750-1,000 words. October.

• A scene story that takes the reader on a brief but revealing adventure into an event or moment or happening — a party, a protest, a moment, a mob. 1,000-1,300 words. November.

• A long narrative profile/story, 2,500-3,000 words. (This is their big project and final paper.) December.

Weingarten!

There are two required books in this course: The Fiddler in the Subway: The Story of the World-Class Violinist Who Played for Handouts … And Other Virtuoso Performances by America’s Foremost Feature Writer, by the one and only Gene Weingarten.

The other book is George W.S. Trow’s famous (and infamous) essay Within the Context of No Context.

We’ll also be reading a number of articles, reviews and essays. I haven’t narrowed it down completely yet — honestly, I could drown the world in must-reads from my “keep”

Trow!

files — but this group of writers may very well include Henry Allen, Marjorie Williams, Susan Orlean, Cintra Wilson, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Joan Didion, Michael Kruse, David Rakoff, Chuck Klosterman, Rebecca Brown, Tom Bissell, Tom Junod, Gay Talese, Pauline Kael, Ben Montgomery, Sarah Vowell, Dan Zak, Monica Hesse, Robin Givhan, Anthony Lane, Lindy West, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Sandra Tsing Loh … and a whole buncha’ other critics and feature writers.

And, crap, probably a little bit of Hank Stuever too. I’m not sure yet how I feel about that — teach my own stuff? — but, as a way to get us started on reported essays, and to get us acquainted with one another as writers, I assigned a Hank Stuever piece for our class on Wednesday: “Scooch Over,” an essay I wrote in for the Post in 2001 about plastic patio chairs.

And so we’re off.

Here’s a picture of our classroom in Don Anderson Hall, which is a truly perfect place to do this kind of thing.

Do your homework!

Fall TV season! For you it began long ago, when NBC first started airing those endless commercials for “Whitney.” For me it began even longer ago, and involved a two-week press tour in Los Angeles in August. (Rough life, I know — boo hoo.)

But at last I see a light at the end of this tube. At least for a while. Before all the new shows get cancelled, I wanted to post evidence of my efforts and the efforts of my colleagues. For this year’s Fall TV issue of the Washington Post‘s Sunday Style section, I belatedly came up with an organizing principle: For each show, I asked myself if it was better or worse than ABC’s “Pan Am,” which is perfectly, exactly mediocre television. From there, the shows sorted themselves. The talented Mr. Kim Maxwell Vu, who designs Sunday Style, checked in for early priority boarding on the “airport” concept and found a cool artist, Jesse Lenz, to pilot us to safety. Kim managed to bring it all together in less than a week. Here’s the cover:

And here are some other pages, from the section’s center, furthering the theme without going bonkers, arranging the shows into FIRST CLASS, VIP LOUNGE, BAGGAGE CLAIM and AIR SICKNESS. This is the meat of the TV issue: reviews of all the fall shows. (I’ll deal with mid-season shows later, in, duh, the mid-season.)

The print newspaper readers got the real treat of this design, but our online readers aren’t badly served either. All the reviews and everything else can be had here.

For those who like things boiled down …

My five favorite shows this season, in order: “Once Upon a Time” (ABC); “Hell on Wheels” (AMC); “Homeland” (Showtime); “American Horror Story” (FX); and “Up All Night” (NBC). Yes, you need cable if you don’t have it.

Wanted for the crime of bugging the living shit out of me.

My five LEAST favorite this season, in whatever order you care to NOT watch them: “New Girl” (Fox); “How to be a Gentleman” (CBS); “Prime Suspect” (CBS); “Hart of Dixie” (CW) and “Charlie’s Angels” (ABC).

Not that anyone may notice, but I’m trying to break a certain age-old paradigm in the Post‘s approach to TV reviews. This fall, instead of writing a full review for the daily Style section of lots of new shows, I’m letting these capsule reviews from the Sunday package state my critical case for now, which we’re “repurposing,” in even shorter form, next to the daily TV grids on the premiere nights. I’m just not convinced that the world needs 600-plus words on every show on the morning of the night it premieres, when no one’s figured out if they even like or dislike it yet.

I’d rather wait for the wave of cancellations and the revisit a particular show once it gains any sort of traction or triggers something remotely like zeitgeist. Some shows I intend to write fuller reviews on — right now I’m re-watching “Terra Nova,” “Homeland” and “American Horror Story” for further thoughts.

Okay, so: Thank you all for visiting the sausage factory today. Please be sure to enjoy some fresh sausage on your way out and remember to leave your protective eyewear goggles with Sandy at the front desk.

PS: If you missed the TV issue, I wrote a piece on WTF HAPPENED TO WOMEN?! here. Shorter version: I don’t for one minute buy this crap about how “The Playboy Club” and “Whitney” and “Charlie’s Angels” indicate a step forward for women. Zooey Deschanel, in my mind, certainly qualifies as a big step back.) Also, lately: My deadline take on that tragic Emmys show. And Ashton Kutcher joining that dumb sitcom your Nana always watches. Oh, and Anderson Cooper, getting so personal in his daytime show and yet still withholding…