On the (Sometimes) Unbearable Weirdness of Reporting

Sometimes as a journalist, you go to events and your plans to cover them just don't work out. Yesterday was one of those times. I went over to the Pierre Menard Gallery - a very nice and rather public-spirited Cambridge art gallery that I have been to on a few occasions - to record a sort of minimally-advertised "conversation" between feminist icons Kate Millett and Catherine MacKinnon that I found out about by the old-fashioned method of seeing a flyer on a lamp post.

So I got there and there were about 25 people spiraling around towards some folding chairs set up in the front of the gallery space - the kind of nicely-dressed bohemian academics and artists that one comes to expect to see at these sorts of things. In the back were Millett and MacKinnon, who were just arranging themselves in their seats. Millett was fiddling with an old tape recorder and seemed a bit preoccupied with it, but MacKinnon was more or less unoccupied. I went up and introduced myself to both of them and and said I would be recording the event for Open Media Boston.

Even though I had just seen a guy from WMBR introduce himself and set up a recorder next to MacKinnon, she seemed a bit taken aback by my statement, and we chatted about creator rights for a couple of minutes. I explained that if they didn't want me to record I didn't have to, and that I'm active in the National Writers Union and quite understanding of the need for people to control their own work. MacKinnon, for her part, sort of argued with herself - recognizing that it was a public event, and that I technically had the right to record them for broadcast. The event moved towards getting started; so we never really finished the conversation.

German artist Heide Hatry, who was curating the exhibit of Millett's artwork that was the reason for her conversation with MacKinnon, got things started shortly after helping convince Millett that she was recording the event on video and would get Millett a copy, and that there was therefore no need for continuing to try to coax life into the old tape recorder.

So I started recording - not sure if I'd be using it or not for anyone other than myself - and taking photos. And the hour that followed unwound strangely. Millett alternately engaged and attacked the audience with a series of near non-sequiturs and rambling anecdotes. Having just written a piece about the Battlestar Galactica finale, Millett reminded me of no character so much as one of the Hybrids in that TV series - half-human, half-machine oracles that spouted seemingly nonsensical bursts of verbiage that occasionally focused like lasers into incredibly useful insights into the nature of existence and the universe.

Unfortunately, the purpose of the conversation was to have MacKinnon lead a guided theoretical exploration of Millett's artwork - which seemed to be the one subject that Millett had no intention of talking about.

Around 45 minutes into Millett's dialogue/diatribe on subjects as diverse as laws against second-hand smoke (which she opposed), the subordinate position of women in Iran (which she also opposed), her dad and mom (both of whom she seemed to like), her desire for a Viking funeral (which I vocally agreed with), and the war in Iraq (which she was against), Hatry finally said in a level but firm tone that Millett needed to answer MacKinnon's inquiries in one sentence before launching into verbal flights of fancy. Millett basically assented, and gave a more or less straight answer to one of MacKinnon's last questions - with some interlocutory help from MacKinnon and Hatry. And then they wrapped up the talk a few minutes later.

I waited for about 5 minutes near MacKinnon to try to talk to her again and finish figuring out if she cared about my running the audio recording I'd made in Open Media Boston. But MacKinnon was surrounded by 3 women who seemed to be Harvard students - and it became clear they'd be talking for a while. So I went over to the gallery owner, gave him my card, asked him to put me on his press list, and split.

Upon leaving, I mused about all the things I dislike about such events. The speakers and the curator and the owner were all fine - however odd the conversation. But the rarified "Art" with a capital A environment is always difficult for me on a class level. I mean it's hard to know people's class backgrounds in that kind of scene, yet it's a pretty sure bet that a lot of them come from money and/or privilege of various types. In that vein, the idea that I had to even discuss rights issues as a poor reporter (from the kind of working-class striving to middle class family background that I share with the vast majority of Americans) from a poor non-profit publication with a tenured professor from a powerful family with a bunch of successful books made me kind of sad. And was kind of representative of the feelings I get in crowds of such people.

Then I spent the past day dithering about whether I should run the audio after all. And finally, after discussing the matter with my wife (a feminist activist herself) and a couple of friends, I decided it would probably be a disservice to Millett to run the audio and that I didn't want to inadvertently disrespect MacKinnon. So I just bagged it.

There's no special moral here. Just another day in the life of a turn-of-the-millennium journalist dealing with famous and rich people in the rarefied air of one of the world's intellectual powerhouses. Just another choice about what to cover - up or down, move on to the next person/event/demonstration/whatever, and try to tell the truth or something like it to whomever is interested to hear. But thanks to the invention of blogs like this one - I get the luxury of discussing my otherwise internal process with a random audience. Which is nice because then I can get it out of my head, into print, and move on to the next story. Kind of like life that way, when all is said and done.