Charles Apple

MONDAY, FEB. 19
Day Three. The final day.

I’ve not been sleeping enough, but what sleep I get has been high-quality. I finally find the right settings to make my room comfortable.

The problem is, I’ve found, I didn’t pack enough shirts. I’ve sweated so much during the days that I’ve changed shirts some evenings. As a result, I’m nearly out. I wish I had brought short-sleeved shirts to wear during the afternoon. It gets hot in the main room during the day but very cold in there in the evening.

I have breakfast alone yet again, but this time I think to ask for a menu. I try the blueberry pancake combo — with sugar-free syrup — which should provide the same approximate number of carbs I get every morning at my favorite downtown Norfolk diner, d’Egg Center. The pancakes are wonderful.

I check the temperature in Syracuse via the Weather Underground. Minus seven degrees. Holy cow. Holy frozen cow.

We start the day with a mess of medal discussions. We have a wonderful time talking through the pieces. And we make great progress.

We decide to award a gold to a nice big project from El Mundo that describes the history of fashion. It was one of those graphics that runs in eight pieces. If readers save the pages and tape them together, they have a giant poster. The work was incredibly well-designed. Voting for a gold medal seemed like a slam-dunk.

The gold-winning El Mundo front. Our lovely models are Sean McNaughton and Anna Ostlund. Photo by Steve Dorsey

Usually, I turn out to be the most talkative member of any group in which I find myself. Therefore, I expend a great amount of energy trying to not walk all over the more introverted folks. I have tried to develop the habit of eliciting comments from the quieter folks.

But I don’t have to worry about that today. Karl is much, much more extroverted than I am and he has a hell of a lot more energy than I have. I can sit back, take it in and then jump in anytime I feel like I have a point. Karl and I have such similar tastes that I’m confident he’ll bring up most of the issues I’d normally make. I listen attentively, take a lot of mental notes and then try to encourage Leo, Vivian and Carrie to speak up.

I try to keep thinks moving along by asking: But would you vote for this to be a silver? If at least two judges say no, then, we abort the conversation and move along to the next piece.

After we’ve stood there for a while, my legs began to ache. I wonder if there is a way to sit down. One of the students notice our discomfort, runs next door to the bar and hauls in some barstools. Damn good idea!

During a break, another student shows us her portfolio. We get maybe a page or two in when — Bang! — we see a page she built using the same artwork that Xinning and I had used in that page that Karl had commented on the evening before. I nearly fall out of my chair laughing.

We don’t see many student portfolios, but we see some really good ones. These Ohio and Syracuse kids are very sharp. I make a mental note to congratulate Sean, Terence and Julie.

Anna Ostlund had been with our team all weekend. She is preparing to make an early exit, to meet friends and to head back home. She lets it slip that today — Monday — is her birthday. She turns 40, which seems incredible. I would have thought she was at least ten years younger.

Some of the other facilitators find some cupcakes and candles. We all sang Happy Birthday to her.

Anna is always very kind to this particularly poorly-informed American. She’s constantly urging me to broaden my horizons and to take better care of myself. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve a cheerleader like Anna. She’s so calm and self-assured and so mature.

I wish I could be like Anna when I’m her age. Never mind the fact that she’s six years younger than me.

I appear in my third video of the weekend, in which I blather inarticulately about the one-column NYT graphic. Photo by Bill Gaspard

Bill Gaspard comes in to film Karl and me talking about the New York Times piece. Afterward, I spot Steve Dorsey. I ask him if he’s filming any comedy bits for the blog. Last year, they did a number of comedy bits with my pal Kevin Hand. But they had done little of that this year.

Sure but… Steve eyes me suspiciously. What do I have in mind?

I have a vague idea about finding an entry so ugly that it cause me to Hulk out and run amuck. I set Steve up with his back to the big picture window — because the lighting would be better — and we set up a dummy entry. We find a page from a newspaper that contains nothing but type and ads; nothing that was part of the competition. And then we roll tape.

The only things I have in mind are: Slapping the cups off the table, yelling “This sucks!” and then stomping on the cups. With those few goals, I start my improvisation.

I throw a hissy fit for Steve Dorsey’s camera.

Everyone says it is quite entertaining. Steve adds very nice titles, some cool music an then “Godzilla”-like sound effects to the last part, giving it a time-dilation effect. He takes my semi-amusing idea and turns it into a brilliant side-splitter.

Mental note: Make more videos with Dorsey. The man is brilliant.

Even with all these diversions, we spent more time this morning working on our statement. We keep going around in circles. I’d like to construct some kind of outline or nut graf or something, but we don’t seem to have a consensus of what we want to say. Karl reads us his blog entry from the night before. I say that if we could clip out about 30 percent of it, I’d have no problem shaping the remainder into our statement.

Karl’s brilliant caricatures of the graphics judging team. Below us are the chips we used. Left to right: Carrie, Vivian, me, Leo and Karl.
But we also keep coming back to the idea of trying to do something graphically for our statement. Apparently, the previous two graphics teams drew graphics. Karl proposes drawing little caricatures of us. I’m not fond of that idea: I’d rather achieve a consensus on our message and spend our space getting that message across.

They then suggest we write above us on the caricature our thoughts. I’m invited to go first. My message all weekend has been “Content, content, content,” so I write just that. Then, we wonder if this illustration idea will work at all.

I’m going into a slow boil, frustrated with myself. Why can’t I find some way of driving us forward? Do we even have a statement to make?

We decide to sit together at lunch and discuss it further. We’re still going around in circles.

The afternoon begins with our last event: Judging the “Miscellaneous” category of things that don’t belong in other categories. We see some interesting items — promotional pieces, inserts, reprints, hats that you cut out, fold and put on your head.

The big piece that impresses us in this category, though, are seven separate collections of book pages that are also from El Mundo. Evidently, the paper gave these pages to readers as a subscription promotion. Readers collected them together into a book. The subject was Francisco Franco, who, yes, is still dead.

The graphics are incredible. The problem was, most of them had been entered in the portfolio category. At least one of the entries had been drawn by an agency.

Rather than disqualify some of them and then try to fit the others into appropriate categories — all of which had already been judged — we suggest combining the entire bundle into one massive entry and putting that entry into Miscellaneous. We agree that it will receive a fair shake there.

The competition committee signs off on this. Our panel promptly votes it a gold medal, our second of the competition.

With that, we are done. All except for the mission statement.

We have hours to burn. We sit and we chat. But we still don’t make much progress.

Finally, Greg tells us we need to get done with our statement. As soon as the features team is finished with their last category, we’ll convene all the judging teams to review the gold medal winners and see if we can come to a consensus for a possible best-of-show.

Team graphics sits and talks and still goes around in circles. I can’t shake the feeling that I should be driving us toward a goal; toward getting this thing written. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m flunking yet another intelligence test.

I can’t take this. I need a breather. I sling my empty bottled of water into the garbage and I hit the men’s room.

When I emerge, I decide I can’t very well insist we pull together our thoughts until I have a thought of my own pulled together. I’d better put something — anything — on paper.

I poke around the bar for a blank piece of paper. Here’s one. What is this the back of? An application form for employment at Drumlins. Heh. Seems appropriate. I pull up a chair and begin to write off the top of my head.
A few minutes later, Karl comes out to see me. Apparently, the team thinks I’m really pissed. No, not pissed. Just frustrated. And with myself, mostly. I came out here to think. Seriously, dude, I’m not mad. I’m OK. I’ll be back in just a moment. Give me a second to think.

One more sentence and I’m done. I stuff my pen back into my pocket and I walk back into the room. My team wants to know what I was up to.

I have to get my own thoughts straight, I say, before I feel comfortable pushing everyone else to get their thought straight. So I wrote down my thoughts. No obligation or anything. But if I had to sum up our experiences this week — and all I’ve heard us say about our experiences this week — here’s what I’d say.

And I read my piece.

It is only two or three short grafs. I include two or three of Karl’s most meaningful phrases. I include the things I had heard Leo and Vivian say. And I specifically include Carrie’s sound byte about how some pieces failed because of “ambition for ambition’s sake.”

Most of all, though, I try to keep the statement brief and to the point. And I try to keep it positive.

It’s just a quick, rough draft, off the top of my head. It’s meant to give me a framework from which to help us advance to the next step.

I’m done reading it. I’m embarrassed they thought I was mad. Before I can say anything else, though, my team explodes.

They love it. We’re done, Karl exclaims.

Carrie seems amused. Why didn’t I write this the day before?

I look at her sheepishly. At heart, I’m still a sportswriter. I couldn’t write this earlier because I wasn’t on deadline earlier.

We head back up the hall together for the last time. I hand the statement to Matt Ericson. Here ya go, dude.

The braintrust gathers all 27 judges to view the eight gold awards and try for a consensus for Best of Show. The news design team makes an eloquent case for a wonderful redesign project. Does anyone else want to make a pitch, Kris Kinkade asks.

Team Graphics huddles quickly. We decide to push the big El Mundo fashion piece. Karl speaks like a politician. Better than a politician — a statesman.

Another judge is taken with the El Mundo book project. We kind of look at each other and shrug. What the hell? Karl launches into a pitch for that entry, too, to be Best of Show. It crosses my mind that El Mundo should probably put Karl on its payroll.

Another judge speaks up for a truly stunning photo entry. Hell, all eight of the gold awards are spectacular. How will we ever decide?

A secret vote is taken. The four candidates are narrowed to two. Then, to one. But the vote must be unanimous. Yet another secret vote is taken. A gaggle of facilitators, watching intensely, are startled when the folding table they’re leaning against suddenly lets go. Michael Whitley nearly busts his ass.

Kris returns from the last count. There is no consensus. There will be no Best of Show.

Should we be disappointed? I can’t decide. I’m too tired to think. I’ve looked at too many dead trees over the past three days. I need a beer. We board the bus for the hotel.

As we walk through the revolving doors into the Sheraton, the Syracuse folks are standing in the lobby handing out beautiful suede bags bearing the SND logo. Oh. My. God. What an incredible piece of swag. Now, I actually have room to take home those Syracuse sweatshirts for Sharon and Elizabeth!

We gather in the bar, waiting for the second busload of facilitators to arrive before we walk up the street for the traditional last meal at The Varsity. But the bus doesn’t come. Some of us are on our second or third beer. The hour grows late.

Meg Lavey pulls me aside. She’s concerned: The Varsity closes at 9 p.m. We’d better leave soon.

There’s no way I can take charge of this group. I look for someone who can. I spot Cavendish. Ah, perfect. I relay to him what Meg said. He agrees to herd us out the door. Let the others catch up later.

The folks at the restaurant are stunned to see us. Heh. Don’t worry, M’am, this is only about half the group. The rest are on the way.

Team Graphics decides to sit together again. I don’t really want it all to end. I think the other four feel the same way. But none of us know how the process works at The Varsity. There’s a line here for pizza and a line there for everything else. But it takes us a while to figure it all out. By the time we do, we’re told it’ll be 45 minutes before we get our pizza.

This puts me in a bind. I’m now seriously late for a meal, the first time this has happened all weekend. I should have had a snack back at the hotel.

When I miss a meal, my blood sugar gets messed up and I become scatterbrained. Or, rather, more scatterbrained than usual. My speech slurs and my logic circuits completely shut down. The result: I appear as if I’m drunk. I fumble with ordering a pitcher of beer and a plate of cheese sticks. By now, folks are starting to look at me funny.

By the time the pizza arrives, the buzzing in my head is quite loud. I’m having trouble concentrating. Gayle Grin sits down on my left and chats for a while. She probably thinks I’m totally smashed.

After a few slices of pizza, though, I’m out of danger. Another few minutes and I’d have probably passed out. Not a good thing. I guess I should be grateful I’ve gone this long this weekend without a problem.

After we’re evicted from The Varisty, we walk back to the hotel bar. Again, Team Graphics sits down together for drinks. We continue to chat into the evening. But eventually, it has to come to an end.

We exchange hugs. Vivian and Carrie kiss me on the cheek. I tell myself I’ll never wash my face again.

Meg walks me to my room, where I show her Dorsey’s video of me freaking out. She reminds me to make a reservation for the shuttle van. Damn — I had completely forgotten about that. Meg calls downstairs and sets it up for me.

We sit and gossip a while. I’m not very good company for Meg, though — I lapse into a fit of yawns. Meg takes pity on an old man. She agrees to meet me for breakfast and then leaves me alone.

This judge is all judged out.

(NEXT: THE FINAL CHAPTER) 

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The first category is breaking news graphics. Ah; my specialty. But immediately, I discover a problem: I like too many of the entries.

You all know how the system works. Each page has two overturned cups before it: One red and one blue. Each cup has a slit in the top. If you want to vote for a graphic, you drop your chip in the blue cup. If you want to vote against it, you drop your chip in the red cup.

A typical chip-voting setup. Photo by Scott Goldman

Each judge is assigned a color. You keep that color all weekend. I was assigned red chips that have a little silver border around them. I figured that was the judging equivalent of the short bus.

As we work, we’re discouraged from speaking to each other. Don’t discuss the graphics. Don’t pick up or touch a cup. If you can’t remember whether or not you voted on a particular entry, call over a facilitator to check the cups. Don’t pick up an entry to read the form.

If you have a conflict, grab a yellow cup and place it by the entry. The facilitators would then call in a “conflict judge” — usually Jamila Robinson or Joe Hutchinson — to vote on that one entry.

When we’re all done, the captain goes down the row, pulling up the cups and shouting out the results. If there are three chips under the blue cup, the entry gets an award of excellence. Four or five chips under the blue cup means it moves into a special stack to be considered for a gold or silver medal. Only one or two chips under the blue cup means the entry is — and notice how delicately we phrase this: “OUT!”

Unless there are only two chips under the red cup, too. That would mean a judge missed this entry. At that point, we all avert our eyes as someone pokes at the chips to see what color is missing. “Blue, pink, yellow, green… we’re missing a red chip.”

Damn. That would be me. Everyone stops while I run around to judge the entry.

We miss quite a few that first day. It takes us a while to learn the tricks. If you want to come back to an entry, put a chip or something on the table so you won’t forget to return and vote. Don’t stop to chat with students as you deliberate — if you do, you’ll forget to vote. Things like that.

Before long, it’s lunch time. I was expecting school-lunchroom-like food, but I’m wrong. The food is incredible. It’s all I can do to keep from taking in too many carbs. Woudln’t want to have a blood-sugar episode now.

I head into the afternoon raring to go. Why have I been avoiding this for so long? This is fun! As I mentioned earlier, Greg Swanson arrives and takes over from Justin. I’m sorry to lose my old pal Justin but happy to come under the wing of my old pal Greg.

Greg Swanson in charge. Photo by Karl Gude.

So we go to the next category and then the next. We’re buzzing along, finding our rhythm. We’re getting tired, though. Standing on your feet all day long is exhausting. My legs began to ache. The other judges began to complain about their backs or their head. Karl was afraid he might be getting a migrane.

Just as I was starting to feel down, the first negative note of the weekend sounded. We were between rounds and a gaggle of students was sorting our used chips back out into their colors so they could be given back to us. I plopped down on the floor next to them and began to help.

And a facilitator snapped at me. My job isn’t to sort chips. I have a lot of work in front of me and the only way we’re going to get it all done is if I do my job. My job, at this moment, is to sit down and rest my legs.

This facilitator was quite right. I was quite wrong. But man, did I get pissed. I plopped into one of the big overstuffed chairs and I sulked. I wasn’t happy. But again: I was wrong. The facilitator was right.

The next category was a bit of an inertia killer, as well: Best use of graphics throughout the newspaper. There were 12 entries. Each entry consisted of six whole editions of a paper. We were to flip through the papers, note how well each paper used graphics and then judge them.

So what’s the problem with that? Some of these papers were quite large. Do you know how high a stack of six issues of the Los Angeles Times can be?

So we gulp, pull up some chairs and we dive into the papers. We spend more than four hours poring over these entries.

As we near the end, one of the facilitators offers a hint: If you go through the first two or three issues and you aren’t impressed with what you’re seeing, you can pretty much dump that entry and move on to the next one. Look at it this way, he said: How good would the next two issues have to be in order to make up for what you’ve already been underimpressed with?

We look at each other and our jaws hit the ground. We all felt obligated to scan every page of ever section of every entry. Had we received this hint earlier, we could have shaved hours off this category.

I finish my work feeling drained and stupid. We have enough time left for only one medal discussion. We dive into the breaking news medal contenders.

Medal meetings have quite a different rhythm than simple cup-voting and vote-counting ( which they call “uncupping”). Basically, Greg pulls out the pages and tells us how many chips it received. It’ll be either four or five chips. Do we want to award a silver to the entry? How about a gold?

The temptation is to launch into a detailed critique of each piece. Most of the entries deserve only an award of excellence, however, despite the fact that all five of us voted for it. So we learn very quickly to say something if we feel it deserves a silver.

We get to this one piece from a Spanish-speaking paper. The judges are impressed. Does anyone want to push for Silver, Greg asks. I say yes, I’d like to make a case. And then I do.

But as we look at it more closely, we begin to doubt some of the content. There are gaps in the information that just aren’t working. Despite Karl and Leo’s attempts to translate, we decide we need more help. Alberto Cairo of the University of North Carolina is summoned via walkie-talkie to help translate.

Alberto translated a number of pages for us. Here, he helps Carrie. Photo by Karl Gude

Eventually, we decide we can’t figure out the graphic. We discuss whether or not it even deserves an Award of Excellence. I say I would not have voted for it at all had I been able to understand it had content issues. I insist it be dropped from our AOE list.

More walkie-talkies spring to life. The competition committee materializes in our room. They convene in a corner and huddle like the Chicago Bears. After a lengthy review, Kris comes over and tells us their decision: Once an AOE is awarded, we can’t take it away. I’m aware that I caused a hell of a stir here at the end of Day One. I feel badly for bringing it up in the first place.

I spend a couple hours moping over a Guinness in the hotel bar. I try to cheer myself up by buying wine for Vivian and Carrie.

I’m tired, I’m drained and I feel awfully, awfully stupid. I should have thought of that shortcut on the exhausting stacks of papers. And I usually have such good instincts on breaking news graphics. After preaching “content, content, content,” how could I have been so wrong about that one piece?

I go to bed convinced I’m dragging down my team. I hope I perform better Sunday.

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