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maryportfuncity

Studs Terkel

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Oral historian......nowt to do with denistry, he's noted for a kind of participant observation journalism where he gathers stories from 'ordinary' people and turns out books that cast light on the workings of the world. If you're British think Ray Gosling....assuming you've ever heard of him.

 

Anyway, Studs' latest collection - Hope Dies Last - is garnering justifiably great reviews. Maybe made a little kinder by the fact the man himself is 93.

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Aye, but Ray Gosling isn't 93. He's also something of a drama queen under all the journalistic pretence, his documentaries tend to feature him and his emotions centrally, even when he's investigating teddy boys or out of the way places. He once did a documentary on a Cumbrian town called Maryport! I can see how the harder and more commercial world of 21st century television has marginalised him. His style and politics haven't really moved on from the mid-seventies.

 

By contast Studs has a self-depreciation that is really strong. He has been widely quoted as saying he never saw a petition he didn't like!

 

93 or not, I think he'd be a long shot next year. A bit like Les Paul, his work is his life.

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Why isn't Chicago treasure Studs Terkel on the list? He is 95 years old now and appears to be slowing down. I should have recommended him for the 2007 list but I was too busy recommending Betty Ford due to her husband's recent death around New Year's. He is a good prospect and should be on future lists, if he lives that long.

 

By the way I think he lives in my building (John Hancock Center), I saw a guy that looks and sounds a lot like him in the elevator on two separate occasions, one time just a week ago. He was talking to me about philosophy of life and everything, the kind of stuff he would say. He stopped off on one of the office floors of the building. He sounded just like a rambling old man but later on it hit me who he could be. He looked a little bit different than in pictures and he was frail but he was still able to walk around by himself, with a cane, presuming that really is him.

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Studs Terkel and Ray Gosling?? You do the former a gross disservice. Tony Parker is the appropriate point of comparison.

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I've just had the pleasure of watching Stephen Sackur interviewing Studs on BBC News 24's "hardtalk".

 

Mr. Terkel seemed in pretty good shape; lucid, good-humoured and up for a decent in-depth discussion. Sackur didn't really throw any curveballs at him over the half-hour duration of the interview, but Studs gave a very good account of himself. Probably got a few more years in him, I reckon.

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I just saw the Terkel Interview which I believe your haphazardly referencing on whichever versioin of BBC World News my cable provider in Toronto prefers; he looked about as good as you can expect from someone of his years, and gave a very lucid interview, only slightly marred by his general elderly-man-slow-speech.

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Sad news, and not just because none of those five teams is mine.

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