staking my claim

Phase Two of The Pitch is here! We've convened around our newsroom table, bounced ideas off fellow intrepid reporters like Kirsten over at the drama desk, and we're up against deadlines set by our tough, but fair editor, Mr. Burton.

"I want to see your story ideas, and I want to see them yesterday!"

Just add glasses.

All right, all right, here are my five Stegnerian claims. (Thanks to my cubicle-mate Dawn for giving me a good template to draw from: though I may be a prodigious note-taker, I rely primarily on my great memory, whether that's at trivia night, to impress first dates, or recall obscure rhetorical terms. My favorite scene in Earnest was Algernon taking one look at the bills and ripping them up. I've been known to do the same. I sometimes want to do it with my stacks of notebooks.)

1. Policy

Salt Lake City, my beloved hometown, should erect a statue in the U District in honor of arguably our finest native son, Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner. A thriving literary culture necessitates the recognition of quality writers: look at Buenos Aires's relationship with Borges. As it's the 70th anniversary of The Big Rock Candy Mountain, no time like the present. 

2. Definition

surmount:

• Overcome (a difficulty or obstacle).
• Stand or be placed on top of.

Stegner stated that to really understand a city, one has to be able to get up above it. This very Western idea of surveying all that lays before you has deep implications not just from a geographical perspective, but a psychosocial one as well.

Walking distance from my house. #nobigdeal

3. Comparison

Wallace Stegner, widely recognized as a first-tier Western writer, can best be understood using the framework proposed by Philipe Hamon: "Is there a specifically 'literary' vision of the city, different from that of the architect, the painter, the public health officer, the photogrpaher, the politician?" The answer is a resounding yes.

4. Evaluation

"Something drastic had happened to Main Street." This line from Recapitulation is not only prescient, but infinitely more relevant in light of the City Creek project. Salt Lake City's history is unique as a foundational myth of a people: by its very nature, it is a dynamic, even idealistic city, and any attempt to freeze it in time will inherently fail. Nevertheless, we as Salt Lakers are uniquely poised to step back and ask ourselves, "what is the city we want to build?"

Drastic changes on Main Street, circa November 2012.

5. Cause + Effect

Great authors rewrite our experience of real spaces. (Just as Hugovians eagerly tour Notre Dame de Paris, Shakespeare lovers descend on the Globe Theater, or Forks, Washington only has an economy due to our favorite sparkly vampire ...), Wallace Stegner invented plausible, but false locations in Salt Lake City for his very verisimilitudinous Recapitualtion. This can be understood as a metaphor for the very act of authorship itself.

I'm glad Burton asked us to mock these up: framing one's thoughts as a claim is not only stronger persuasively, it's actually really fun!

Now it's time for you to vote in the comments. I actually am pumped for all of these ideas, and I'm sure they'll all make their way in one way or another. However, please weigh in on what angle you find most promising.