geekery about Sol Todd and The Small Dark Movie

[Lioness]

So I knew I didn't want to post this in the larger topic about the episode, but it didn't occur to me until right now that it wanted a topic of its own here in the Sol territories. (Are territories for journalists a subset of the Debateable Lands?)

Anyhow, here's the thing in my head, and it's likely to strike a number of people as crass and tasteless, but to me it's got a flavor of acknowledgment and combat-buddies-type support.

You know how Sol is reporting, all the way through, in The Small Dark Movie? How he's telling, and how he gets in the occasional wry comment about knowing he's telling, about how journalists stay where the story is and there is no noble reason for this -- and then going on to uncover the heart and honor of the tale-reporters in the next offhand sentences, but anyhow....

I keep thinking of him reading these boards and all the comments about Reader-Brain and Writer-Brain and stuff. (Hey, if ANYBODY from the team could read these boards and stay sane, it'd be Todd.  It wouldn't be the weirdest concept he'd entertained by a long shot, for one thing.)  And I keep imagining him telling a mordant and macabre joke that I first heard from a photographer.















(spoiler space here)





Turn Back Now if you are affected badly by mentions of tragedy or by what looks like cynicism.















OK. The joke:

You are a photographer, and you're taking pictures near a body of water. Suddenly you see a man drowning. You have the choice of rescuing the drowning man or taking a possibly prize-winning photograph. What f-stop do you use?



I never committed the kind of journalism that Solomon Todd did, but I cannot help wondering if there's something in his approach that resonates with mine because of the journalism he did do.

[Emma Bull]

I'd forgotten that joke. It made me laugh out loud both the first time and now.

And Sol has heard that joke from photojournalists in the field and retold it, you betcha.

[tylik]

So is the incident report in which it is mentioned that Sol performed CPR on Daphne included in Sol's report? I was kind of thinking that he'd (typically) omitted mention of what he'd done, and the report was included for us.

[Lioness]

So is the incident report in which it is mentioned that Sol performed CPR on Daphne included in Sol's report? I was kind of thinking that he'd (typically) omitted mention of what he'd done, and the report was included for us.

I think the report was indeed included for us. Sol omitted to mention the CPR, though he certainly mentioned the physical effects it left on him.

I think Sol including the report was the best way Sol could tell that part, and Sol really, really wants to tell it well, because it's the thing he does, and it's the best tribute to a fallen comrade: getting their story right.

[Edmund Schweppe]

The joke:

You are a photographer, and you're taking pictures near a body of water. Suddenly you see a man drowning. You have the choice of rescuing the drowning man or taking a possibly prize-winning photograph. What f-stop do you use?

This, apropos of nothing, is the real reason Peter Parker invented his Spidey web shooters - so he could both save the man and get the picture. (The f-stop, of course, depends on the lighting.)