“Those Romantic Islets of Langerhans.”
Not a typical title for a column on diabetes, especially since the author has type II diabetes himself.
For Jon Carroll this is just another one of his daily columns for the San Francisco Chronicle. This particular one was from February1999, part of his “greatest hits” collection that is linked to his biography, on the Chronicles website.
Carroll was born in Los Angeles and raised by his mother in Pasadena. He attended University of California, majoring in experimental chemistry and biology. Interestingly enough it was in a non-classroom setting, but he left after a year and a half.
He started out at the Chronicle editing the crossword puzzle and also wrote summaries of TV movies. In 1970 he was the assistant editor of Rolling stone. In 1971 he was the editor of Rags. In 1972 he was the editor of Oui and in 1974 he was the West coast editor of Village Voice. He also was a consulting editor for WomensSports magazine and in 1978 he was the editor of New West magazine. He won the national Magazine Award in 1979.
He started writing his column at the Chronicle in 1982. He has been writing columns there for fifteen years, on a daily basis.
Most of his columns seem to discuss what is going on in life and in the country, and many have to do with things in his own life. The best quality of Carroll’s columns is that they all have a humor aspect to them. Some are funnier than others, but even the straighter, less humorous ones have that line, or two that make you stop and laugh.
Getting humor into a story and making it truly funny is a very hard thing to do, but Carroll seems to do it well. Even his biography on the SFGate has a humorous quality to it. It reads almost like a product description. It even ends with, “store in a warm, dry place. Rapier wit sold separately.”
He always puts a little bit of himself into his columns, where you learn little facts about him that are interesting, strange, or just plain amusing. One of his recent columns was entitled “Bad house Guest.” In this column you learn a lot about Carroll and his perspective on things. Though part two of the column was much more amusing than part one. You can almost picture this guy sneaking out of a party back to his house for awhile and then sneaking back in, hoping to do so unnoticed, worked the first time, but not the second. Even in part one, you can picture him sitting on the bed in someone’s guest room perusing a book off their book shelf, until he decides he wants to come back out again.
It’s interesting that he puts a lot of first person into his columns, but when he really makes a point he uses “one” instead of, “I.” For example in his column, “Semi-coherent babblings,” he was talking about the Bay Bridge breaking. He used “I” in a lot of the column, but in one portion he said, “One hates to say, ‘shoddy workmanship’, but one is thinking that, and then he puts it back out to the readers. It is a very clever way to pose a question and give your answer at the same time.
Carroll has greatest hits of his columns over the years linked to his biography page, as well as his Mondegreens columns.
Columns on misheard lyrics and phrases.
Not only are they hilarious by themselves but there are marvelously set up within the column.
This column is a well-structured but needs some detail, specifically some examples to bolster the points made about Carroll.
ReplyDeleteFor example:
'Getting humor into a story and making it truly funny is a very hard thing to do, but Carroll seems to do it well.'
Great paragraph, but it needs to be followed with an example of that humor.
And in this case about his study of 'experimental chemistry and biology':
'Interestingly enough it was in a non-classroom setting, but he left after a year and a half.'
the reader needs some explanation about what that really means.
Jon Carroll is one writer who is likely accessible by email, too...