My writing – Page 15 – Christopher Wink

PW: Undesirable elements and an interview with Director Ping Chong

Charisse Loving, with Ping Chong and others of Secret History performance, warming up before rehearsal.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend in Philadelphia, I know what it should be. My byline on PhiladelphiaWeekly.com about a performance commissioned by the Village of Arts and Humanities:

Secret History: The Philadelphia Story debuts this Friday at Old City’s Painted Bride Art Center. The play, written and directed by Ping Chong, a New York–based theater director, explores six teenagers’ first–hand experiences with conflict and violence. The catch? Some of them have never acted before. Read the rest here.

Read the rest, comment, buy tickets, go to the show, then come back and read below a Q&A with director Ping Chong that didn’t make it into the story.

Continue reading PW: Undesirable elements and an interview with Director Ping Chong

PW: Frankford addiction recovery homes

Dignity Recovery sober-living home at 1734 Harrison St. in Frankford, as seen on Fri, Feb. 6, 2009. Add a Caption Save CaptionCancel

The heated debate on private addiction recovery homes in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia takes the front stage in a story I wrote for today’s Philadelphia Weekly.

It’s 1997, and Jeffrey Jackson is getting wet.

He’s balled up, trying to sleep inside New Way Out, an addiction-recovery house in Kensington.

The 28-year-old addict is in the process of kicking heroin after moving on from cocaine, but he’s starving and sweating and can’t somebody stop that damn rain from coming in?

“I told the director, ‘Hey, your roof is leaking,’” Jackson says now. “The guy looked at me with a straight face and said, ‘Then move your bed.’” Read the rest here.

Go there, read the story, comment and return here to check out the extra information and quotations that didn’t make it into my final story.

Continue reading PW: Frankford addiction recovery homes

PW: Reader response for Free Library expansion story

The following feedback came in regarding my recent article about the halted expansion of the central branch of the Free Library, as collected here:

I was at the library last week. I’m not sure the expansion is a necessary ingredient of the Philadelphia ego. Chasing technology as an improvement when the city is not flush is foolish. I can’t imagine it’s a good thing to chase down short attention spans.

Before building it the city should do an evaluation of how much is actually part of the library and not transitory technology.

ERIC RICHMOND
via philadelphiaweekly.com

A longer letter is after the jump.

Inquirer: How unemployment affects men

David Clyburn reads in the Nicetown Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia as he waits for a computer to use in his search for a job. (Photo by BONNIE WELLER / Staff Photographer)

I have a clip in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer on the emotional effects unemployment can have on men.

Thomas Schuler is a man.

Since October, he also has been without a job, a combination of characteristics that some say comes with distinct disadvantages. Read the rest here.

Below see the loads of good information and quotes that didn’t make it into the final story.

Continue reading Inquirer: How unemployment affects men

Inquirer: Zurich bicycle-trip personal essay

Standing with Sean Blanda and his brother Brian in Zurich, on the dock described in my Inquirer story below.

A personal journey essay of mine appeared in today‘s Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

If I keep my hand steady long enough, I just might get a photograph of me racing down the steepest hill in Zürich on a bicycle. But I’ll have to settle for the shot of me standing on a dock on Lake Zurich, shadowed by the yellow sun, framed in crystal blue skies, as I peer at the Swiss Alps, not 20 miles away. Read the rest here.

See related video, another photograph and read some details on the story below.

Continue reading Inquirer: Zurich bicycle-trip personal essay

The Northeastern U.S. Cities: an embarrassment of urban riches

This is a conversation I’ve had too many times.

I am in Washingto D.C. today, the day after Martin Luther King day, for the inauguration of Barack Obama. While I will have much more to say on that in coming days, being here reminded me of how often we in the mid-Atlantic take for granted what we have: five of the most influential cities in the country and among the more meaningful in the world.

All Americans have relative access to them, but the densest collection of our residents can visit Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington D.C. for the weekend.

Continue reading The Northeastern U.S. Cities: an embarrassment of urban riches

CJR: How Vice President Rendell makes me want to be a journalist

The Columbia Journalism Review finally came to its senses and realized it can’t survive without my work. …Sorta.

On Wednesday, a personal essay of mine was featured on the CJR Web site.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell will be named Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, a high-ranking source in the administration told the Patriot-News.

That was my lede after being tricked into believing Rendell was Obama’s No. 2 man by a famed newsroom of top-flight state government correspondents in the Harrisburg state capital.

This isn’t the story of the Pennsylvania governor being named Obama’s running mate. This is the story of how the economy is in free fall, newspapers are on life-support, and yet they still can’t get rid of me. Read the rest here.

Go read the story and comment there! Spread the word and show interest in the story.

Below see some portions of the story I cut.

Continue reading CJR: How Vice President Rendell makes me want to be a journalist

CampusProgress.org: the Obama inauguration's young audience

Military personnel act as stand-ins for President-elect Barack Obama and family on the West Front of the Capitol during a rehearsal for the Inauguration Ceremony in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

A story I wrote on the young audience expected at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration was featured on CampusProgress.org yesterday.

At least one student doesn’t have very far to go to see a seminal moment in American history. To see Barack Obama inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States of America next week, Jonathan Cohn, a Georgetown University junior, can walk. Cohn lives in Washington, D.C., and will be among the millions who are expected to crowd the nation’s capital for Obama’s historic oath. Cohn will be part of what may be the largest contingent of college students at a presidential inauguration in the event’s 220-year history. Read the rest here.

See some extras that didn’t make it into the story below.

Continue reading CampusProgress.org: the Obama inauguration's young audience

SHRM: Smart Wireless Connectivity Key to Data Protection

My first story for the Society of Human Resource Management magazine appeared online yesterday. It focuses on the dangers that face mobile employees who use unsecured wireless networks and what human resource professionals need to know about the trends.

You can’t read it because it’s by subscription. Instead, I’ll give you my lede and what I cut from my first clip in a trade publication.

Continue reading SHRM: Smart Wireless Connectivity Key to Data Protection

Notes on seeing Europe from a train

: On the train destined for Stockholm, Sweden on Nov. 1, 2008.

By Christopher Wink | Oct 23, 2008 | WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com

You take trains from big cities to other big cities. Lands, untold by tour books and unseen by sloppy tourists like yourself, unfold beneath your high carriage of jet setting: two months, 10 cities 3,000 miles wide and two or three days deep.

You are riding great dividers of place and time, laughing at great empires of history. Slicing corridors of culture. Other trains pass with silent screams at 70 miles per hour. You mull issues of personal importance and navigate narrow bathrooms.

There’s the old story of the boy who took a train and came back a man. No great story of accomplishment or adventure, but stalking late-night cars and toeing empty rail yards. Sleeping with a bag in his lap until he wanted someone to know him again. Until he learned who is chasing whom.

Continue reading Notes on seeing Europe from a train